


Swallow My Heart and Flee

by fallovermelikestars



Category: Glee
Genre: Blaine Big Bang Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallovermelikestars/pseuds/fallovermelikestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine Anderson comes to New York thinking the world is his oyster, overjoyed at the prospect of taking a bite of the Big Apple, moving into an apartment he and Kurt can call home and finally living the Manhattanite life together they’ve always dreamed of. But then Kurt gets an offer that he’s not sure he can refuse, the plans they’ve made are turned on their head and Blaine finds out that having a dream and living it are two very different things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swallow My Heart and Flee

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst the first three seasons of Glee are canon here, we go AU following Blaine’s rendition of ‘It’s Time’ in season 4. There’s no Eli C and no break-up and no NYADA for Kurt. It’s my version of what could have happened had all of that, not.
> 
> Eternal thanks and love and whatnot to [my beta](http://gaytears.tumblr.com/) who is the best ever at all things. I hope she knows how much I appreciate her everything.  
> Also, it seems to me that the story is only half of what a Big Bang is all about so kudos to [Raelee](http://pricecunningham.tumblr.com/post/59794149151/bbb-art-ill-link-the-story-later-and-i-feel-bad) for the art, too. Thanks lovely.

Blaine feels like he’s waited his entire life for this, which is ridiculous.

In the grand scheme of things he hasn’t even waited a year, but it’s felt like so much longer; he feels like he’s been through so much: heartache and tribulations, almost break-ups and delighted reunions. He’s feeling sick to his stomach and wishing so desperately that Kurt was here to hold his hand as he opens his acceptance letters because what if they aren’t even acceptances after all this? He wasn’t even free to open them in the privacy of his own room – reason number 4,563 why Blaine can’t wait to move out because _Jesus, have his parents never heard of personal space?_ He has instead been forced to open the envelopes in the lounge, standing in front of the fireplace with his parents side by side on the sofa. Blaine is pretty sure he’s about to throw up all over their rug, the one that costs more than some people’s homes.  
  
They _are_ acceptances, of course, Blaine had worked _hard_ on those applications... Of course, the fact that he’s been accepted everywhere means that there’s the arduous process ahead of weighing his choices. God almighty, he had _a choice_ of _schools in New York._ Additionally, he has to convince his dad that no, he wouldn’t be better in student accommodation – _Kurt and I have been together for over two years and when are you going to take me seriously?_ _  
  
_Kurt’s delighted; he’s all happy squeals and “I’m so proud of you” and a gorgeous Marc Jacobs brown leather messenger bag with tan straps arrives in the post with a note saying that he’d gotten it from Isabelle and obviously Blaine was going to need something to carry his books in. Then he calls randomly at 1:30 in the morning.  
  
“Oh my _God_ , Blaine, you’re coming to New York.”  
  
Blaine’s bemused, and sleepy, but mostly bemused because yes, he is and why is Kurt so surprised? They’ve been planning this forever.  
  
“You’re coming to New York. To live. _With me.”_  
  
What follows is a series of emails from Kurt that make Blaine’s head spin. Working at Vogue must be a cinch because Blaine’s boyfriend seemed to have a ridiculous amount of time to spend apartment hunting: “ _What about this one?_ ” “ _On what planet is that even remotely within our price range, Kurt?_ ”; “ _Or this one?_ ” “ _I’m not stupid, Kurt; you can’t email me hell-holes like that in the hope I’ll rob a bank and agree to that palace on the Upper East Side_ ”; or “ _BLAINE_ , _this one?_ ” “ _Yes. Go look at it.”_ That’s followed by a flight out to see it for himself. He isn’t even able to bring himself to care that his parents are with him and that they’re going to be paying half the rent because it says _"Hummel"_ and _"Anderson"_ right there on the lease. It’s theirs.  
  
He’s made it, he’s here. He’s here with _Kurt_. Kurt who owns this city like he’s never been anywhere else, who makes their almost grotty – “ _Don’t you dare say that about our home, Blaine Anderson; it’s ours and it’s perfect_ ” – apartment into the most glorious apartment in the world. Even Blaine’s mother, who had turned up her nose at the first sight of a damp patch on the ceiling, is impressed at the transformation.  
  
His classes are satisfyingly hard and he’s making the most incredible friends, his Facebook page is buzzing with activity and he’s thrown himself into student life. This is college, and Blaine is determined to get the most out of the experience.  
  
He auditions for the show choir and aces it, so there’s that. Kurt magicks a bottle of champagne from somewhere when Blaine texts to tell him, and has it chilling on ice when he gets back from class; Blaine still has no clue how that boy is even real some days. They drink it out of mugs and share a bowl of nachos from a box and it’s possibly the best night of Blaine’s life so far.  
  
That said, Blaine’s not going to pretend it’s easy.  
  
They’re so broke sometimes that Blaine is grateful Kurt has such a rigorous skincare routine – he worries so much about whether they can afford to eat that the frown lines would be perfectly etched in his forehead if he were anybody else. There’s more than one argument that makes Blaine feel sick to his stomach because fights are so much scarier when they’re about real things like money and who’s pulling their weight or not and whose turn it is to pick up the dry cleaning (surely it should _always_ be Kurt’s because Blaine owns like, two items that ever need dry cleaning, but whatever, sometimes it’s easier to concede). They both work so hard because college is harder than Blaine had anticipated and his workload is heavy especially with his part time job and all his extracurriculars. As for Kurt’s job, well, it’s safe to say it’s absolutely not as easy as Blaine once thought it was.  
  
God, Kurt works harder than anybody Blaine has ever met and yet still seems to be stretched so _thin_. Some days he comes home and just sobs in Blaine’s arms because he’s so exhausted and so stressed and _what if he’s just not good enough._ That breaks Blaine’s heart, really, because the one thing Kurt always is is good enough, and so he holds him and he kisses him and he lays him out on the bed ( _their_ bed) and rubs his shoulders and his back until he feels Kurt go limp beneath him. Then, he folds his love in his arms and hopeshopes _hopes_ that one day it will be easier than it is right now.

But even with all of that, the lack of money and the hard work and the fights, despite it all Blaine is _here_ and they’re together and it’s just like they always planned, sort of kind of almost, and does anything really matter more than that?  
  
: :  
  
Kurt won’t pretend it’s easy.  
  
In actuality it is the opposite of easy; sometimes it’s all so difficult that he just wants to pack a bag, get on a plane, crawl back into his childhood bed and have his dad bring him hot milk so he can be a kid again.  
  
He thinks maybe he had slightly unrealistic expectations of _life,_ because as incredible a feeling as it is to be able to say that this is his job, working at _Vogue_ is so much more demanding than he expected. While he loves the challenge and he is fascinated by pretty much every single thing he does, sometimes his workload is just crippling. He blames _Ugly Betty_ – for all her poor fashion choices, Betty Suarez made working at a fashion magazine look so much easier than the reality is proving to be.  
  
It’s been better since Blaine got here, turning up with all that sexy knitwear and _that smile_ and allowing all the pieces of Kurt’s life to slot into place (finally), and now Kurt’s got it all: dream job, hot boyfriend who is an actual bona fide New York college student, working as a barista and playing open mic nights for extra cash. And god, _Blaine_. Just the fact that Kurt gets to see him every day, gets to wake up with him there instead of one of them having to cross state lines just to press their lips together, that’s enough to make up for the fact that sometimes Isabelle is a dragon and sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day and sometimes he really does feel like he is well and truly in over his head.  
  
Of course, it’s hardly perfect: they have no money and their apartment is absolutely not the kind of apartment Kurt had imagined, and he kind of misses the loft and even Rachel some days. Sometimes the fact that it’s cold and there are loud drunken idiots on the sidewalk below matters more than the fact that they have made it look awesome but he gets to come home to Blaine every night and it’s theirs so maybe that’s what he should focus on.    
  
If he’s going to be perfectly honest with himself, if Kurt thought living hours apart from Blaine was hard, well, living together is harder. Their apartment is small and there’s no room and there’s nowhere to go to just be alone, which sucks – everybody needs to be alone sometimes no matter how in love they are. Blaine’s studying so hard and Kurt’s working so hard and they’re both so tired and so tightly wound some days that it only takes the smallest thing to set them off and on those days it’s complete and utter carnage and Kurt feels so _so_ sorry for their neighbors.  
  
As for New York itself, well, New York is not all the movies say it is. It’s amazing, so much so, but at the same time it’s so so not and Kurt is coming to realise that this city has its flaws. Still, he can’t make that matter because when he looks past all that, they’re still Kurt and Blaine.  
  
Kurt and Blaine, Blaine and Kurt and no matter how hard it is you can’t take away from the fact that they are two boys from Ohio living the dream, albeit in a dingy little apartment with a refrigerator you have to kick to keep working and lights that flicker. Kurt snuggles up most nights in one of Blaine’s old Dalton sweatshirts and they wrap up in blankets they’ve dragged off the bed, with Blaine’s feet burrowed between the sofa cushions and Kurt’s thighs. They stay up late working on papers and designs and _I need that on my desk yesterday, Kurt, thank you, you angel_ assignments, they kiss and talk and everything is so much more here. On the good days (and even at the back of his mind on the bad days) Kurt thinks he and Blaine were made to live in this city; he feels like they have the world at their feet, like they can be anything, like they’re permanently high on the city and each other. That’s why Kurt can barely keep the grin off his face as he bounds into the apartment, the next step of their adventure clasped in the palm of his hand.  
  
“I’ve got a surprise!”  
  
Blaine sits at their tiny dining table, scribbling notes and bobbing his head in time to his iPod. He looks up as Kurt skips into the room, pushes his glasses up his nose and smiles – Kurt’s heart flutters a little in his chest because _Blaine_.  
  
“I like surprises,” Blaine says.  
  
Kurt bounces across the room and drops into the other chair, smiling as Blaine reaches out a bare foot and runs it up his leg. His toes are cold – being barefoot in their poorly heated apartment mid-winter does that – and Kurt flinches at the touch. Kurt’s kept this quiet for weeks, he feels like he might explode if he doesn’t say it out loud and now it’s all but confirmed so,  
  
“I’m going to London!”  
  
“What?”  
  
Kurt is bouncing up and down in the chair and Blaine is still smiling, but it’s slightly less indulgent and slightly more bemused. Kurt giggles and pushes the papers he’s been gripping tightly in his hand for the last 42 minutes across the table.  
  
“It’s Vogue London – an internship, which means I’ll basically be doing what I’m doing here, I guess, and the money won’t be _better_ but they’ll cover my digs so I can still keep paying the rent here so there’s that... and it’s better than here because there’s all sorts of stuff in the pipeline which I’m not allowed to talk about yet, but that I’d get to actually make my mark on. I thought Isabelle would say no – God, I brought it up as a _joke_ kind of – but she’s actually backed me on this, Blaine. It’s the whole summer in London and _God,_ can you even imagine the opportunity and the experience and it means _I get to go to London, Blaine_. And the best part? If I like it, if they like me then I could stay, I could transfer permanently, be on the staff in London with my own, my own _everything_."  
  
“That’s the best part.”  
  
Kurt’s been talking a mile minute and it takes a second for him to realize that Blaine’s tone is completely flat, that’s he’s just staring at him, smile gone. Kurt feels his stomach drop to his feet because he hadn’t expected this, hadn’t ever imagined that Blaine would be anything less than excited.  
  
“You might be able to transfer to London permanently and that’s the best part? I mean, I didn’t know anything about this... You’ve been planning this whole thing and I’m only hearing about it now?”

“It was a surprise,” Kurt says a little defensively, wrapping his arms around his chest.  
  
“This isn’t a surprise, Kurt, it’s a fucking bombshell.” Blaine never swears. He swallows hard and runs a hand over his face before locking his eyes on Kurt’s. “When were you going to tell me?”  
  
“I’m telling you right now,” Kurt says, although he knows that’s not what Blaine means; that what he’s saying is actually, _Why did you not tell me before_?  
  
“You’re telling me now.” Blaine picks up the covering email from the pile of papers, skims it quickly before dropping it back down onto the table as though it pains him to touch it. "–when you’ve already made your decision. I thought we were a team.”  
  
“We are.” Because they are, Kurt thinks. It’s him and Blaine against the world, always has been. It scares him sometimes how much of a _they_ they are, how somehow along they way they became KurtandBlaine, two parts of one whole; Kurt no longer knows how to function on his own and he wonder if it’s healthy, this level of dependency on another person, except it’s not just another person it’s _Blaine_. “We _are_ a team.”  
  
“Except you’re doing this without even talking to me. You’re throwing London in my face like I’m supposed to dance you through the streets in joy.”  
  
“This is a big deal for me, Blaine.” Kurt doesn’t understand what’s happening right now, why Blaine is angry. He’s worked hard for this, he’s so lucky to even have been considered let alone chosen. It’s an opportunity that could open so many doors for him, for them.  
  
“It’s a big deal for _us_. We’re talking the other side of the world, Kurt. You’re going to the other side of the world. It’s signed, sealed, delivered. You’re going and you didn’t even discuss it with me. You’re going to the other side of the world for a minimum of three months and a maximum of _indefinitely_ and you didn’t even mention it in passing.”  
  
“Because I didn’t want to jinx it! Or because I never thought it would happen. It’s just the _summer,_ Blaine. That’s no time at all compared to what we’ve already survived. It’ll be worth it.”  
  
“Worth it to who?” Blaine asks bitterly. “And what if they ask you to stay, what then?”  
  
“Come with me,” Kurt says pleadingly. Blaine is angry and he hates it, feels like icy cold hands have gotten hold of his heart and are twisting it, hard. “We’d find a way.”  
  
Blaine bangs a fist down on the table and Kurt flinches.  
  
“And what if that’s not what I want? Jesus, Kurt. Are you even aware of what you’re asking here? What if I don’t want to spend my life just _following you_. I like it _here._ I’m my own person, I don’t exist to just follow blindly wherever you lead.”  
  
“I never…”  
  
The words die in his mouth because Blaine is right, Kurt hadn’t stopped one second to consider what Blaine might want. He’d seen London and he’d seen opportunity and he’d seen a chance to make the dreams he’d bottled away with the NYADA rejection come true in another way. He’d gotten caught up and he hadn’t ever thought that Blaine wouldn’t want it too and now here they are and it’s a stalemate; Kurt would never hurt Blaine intentionally, not ever and when he pictures his future the only detail that isn’t hazy is Blaine. He would lay down his life for this boy in a heartbeat but he doesn’t know if he can say no to this, not when it’s right there in the palm of his hand.  
  
“Oh,” Kurt says softly and Blaine laughs, a hollow sound.  
  
“Yes, Kurt, _oh_.”  
  
He takes off his glasses and drops them into the case, snapping it shut and running a hand over his face. When they meet Kurt’s gaze again his eyes are duller than Kurt has ever seen them. He knows something just changed – a shift in the air, subtle but tangible – and feels his chest tighten with a sudden panic.  
  
: :  
  
“You look awful.”  
  
Rachel Berry has never been one to pull her punches, and if he cared enough then Kurt would roll his eyes and tell her that somebody who genuinely used to believe animal sweaters were fashion forward is hardly qualified to comment on his outward appearance. But he has had the week from hell and so he _doesn’t_ care. Knows she’s right, too; he didn’t even do his hair this morning. He shrugs, pulls the cuffs of Blaine’s hoodie down over his hands and bites down on his bottom lip.  
  
“You’re wearing a hooded sweatshirt in public, Kurt. What on earth has happened?”  
  
“Do you think I’m selfish?”  
  
Rachel takes a mouthful of her green tea and looks at him consideringly.  
  
“No...” she says finally, drawing out the syllable for longer than Kurt would like. “I think you’re ambitious, mostly, and I think you know what you want and how to get it but I don’t think that makes you selfish. Why?”  
  
“I think Blaine and I are breaking up.”  
  
Kurt feels like he might be sick. Saying it out loud to Rachel makes it so much more real somehow, and the past week is flying through his mind like a videotape on fast-forward, making him dizzy: Blaine’s face when Kurt had handed him the London letter; the screaming arguments; the things Blaine had said that made Kurt want to curl up and just die; the things Kurt had said that he hadn’t even meant; the angry sex that left imprints of Kurt’s teeth on Blaine’s shoulder and bruises on Kurt’s hip but hadn’t even begun to make anything better; the attempts at conversation that had ended in tears and slammed doors, all of it culminating in Blaine walking out and Kurt sitting here in a Greenwich coffee shop, pulling a poppyseed muffin to pieces and feeling numb from the inside out.  
  
Kurt hadn’t wanted any of this, has no idea at all which way to turn. They’ve fought before but never like this and now there are these walls up and he can’t seem to break past them.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Kurt slides the printed email across the table, watching Rachel’s face as she reads.  
  
"You’re going?" Rachel asks, finally, and Kurt could kiss her for the total lack of judgement as she passes the piece of paper back to him. He shrugs his shoulders.  
  
"I don’t know. I didn’t tell him about it – that’s part of the problem, I think."  
  
Rachel takes another sip of her tea, waits.  
  
"I applied on a whim, really. I never ever expected it to ever come to anything so I didn’t tell him because it wasn’t anything. I didn’t tell anybody, actually, and then when it _was_ something I just got so caught up in it, caught up in the fact that they _wanted_ me, that they thought I could do this. I was so excited and so just…I don’t know, amazed I guess, that I let it take me over and I didn’t consider the bigger picture. Which makes me the biggest jerk ever because I should have told Blaine and I shouldn’t have ever assumed he’d just fall into step with my plans. I never meant to hurt him, I just didn’t think. It’s all stupid."  
  
"He doesn’t want you to go?"  
  
"I think he wants me to not _want_ to go." Kurt pauses, turning things over for a moment in his head. "...Or, that’s not quite it. I think he’s hurt that I didn’t discuss it with him, and he feels like he’s made all these decisions in order to be with me and now I’m moving the goalposts. He feels like he considers us but I only consider me. He thinks I’m selfish."  
  
"He said that."  
  
"Yes, he said it. I think ‘ _selfish fucking bastard_ ’ were his exact words."  
  
Rachel blanches because that isn’t Blaine, not at all, and Kurt shrugs his shoulders again.  
  
"He’s right, probably. I am selfish, but I don’t mean to be and it’s partly his fault too because he’s so _amenable_ all the time and he throws all this stuff in my face now like it’s my fault, like I forced him to make all of these decisions; he didn’t have to come to New York, you know? He could have said he didn’t want to and we would have found a different way – made long-distance work for longer or maybe I wouldn’t even have come here at all – but he never said so, in fact he was more excited than I was half the time. But now he’s making like he’s following me around, doing things he doesn’t want to make me happy, like he’s doing all the giving and I’m doing all the taking and it’s not true. Or if it is true how am I supposed to know that’s how he feels if he doesn’t tell me? He says he’s happy and he acts like he’s happy and I’m selfish because I believe him. We can hardly even be in the same room right now without ripping each other to shreds. What am I supposed to do, Rach?"  
  
"I think you should go. Oh, don’t look at me like that." She flicks a hand at him dismissively. "I know everybody thinks I invented the term selfish... Whatever, Kurt, this is an incredible opportunity. You’ll regret it if you let it pass you by and you’ll only resent Blaine for it in the long run and maybe he has a point, maybe he does, but _Kurt._ This is your life, you know?"  
  
Kurt sighs and shakes his head. She’s right, he knows she’s right. That’s part of the problem: that Kurt can’t quite see a way out of this that isn’t going to ruin his life. If he goes he loses Blaine, which makes all of it utterly pointless, but if he stays then Rachel is right: sooner or later he’ll blame Blaine for holding him back.

 

Rachel grabs his hand. "I think you should go, but what is your heart saying?"  
  
"Blaine." Kurt laughs, bitterly. "Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. I think it’s the only word it knows which is making me wonder if I should refuse to listen to it until it makes an effort to broaden its vocabulary. Everything I do, Rachel, _everything I do_ begins and ends with him which is why it makes me so angry that he thinks I only think of myself."  
  
"Maybe that’s your problem, that you are Blaine and he’s you and you’ve always had this Hallmark Card relationship; you set the bar so high from day one and you’ve never let it fall. You’ve never learned to be apart."  
  
"We were apart for the best part of a year."  
  
"You were not. You spoke every day. You spent every spare moment together. You drove for hours sometimes because you missed him so much it made you sick. You haven’t been apart since the day you met. If you really believe this is right for you then you should do it. If you and Blaine are destined to be together then you’ll figure it out in the end."’  
  
"If I love him let him go? Is that what you’re trying to say, Rachel? Because that’s bullshit. I know exactly what I have with Blaine, I don’t need us to be separated in order to figure that out."  
  
Rachel shrugs her shoulders. "I love Blaine, you know that. I think you two are perfect together. All I’m saying is that first love isn’t always _only_ love and sometimes relationships run their course. London could be it for you, it could shape your whole life – and if Blaine doesn’t get that..."  
  
: :  
  
"I’m not going," Kurt tells Blaine later that evening. They’re sitting on the sofa in their apartment, cross-legged and facing each other. Kurt still hasn’t done his hair, is still wearing Blaine’s hoody. Blaine shakes his head, reaches out to lace his fingers through Kurt’s and Kurt marvels at how well they fit together, like the spaces between his fingers were made to house Blaine’s.  It reassures him a little: it can’t all fall apart when their hands still fit together just so, can it?  
  
"Yes, you are."  
  
Kurt looks at him, puzzled.  
  
"You have to go, Kurt. I’m not stupid, I know what an opportunity this is for you. You’d be crazy to let it go."  
  
"I’d be crazy to let you go," Kurt corrects because it’s true. "You made it pretty clear that this was a deal-breaker, Blaine, and if I have to choose between London and you then I choose you. I will always choose you."  
  
"There shouldn’t be a choice."  
  
Kurt opens his mouth to protest but Blaine shakes his head. "No, I don’t mean that– I mean, _I_ shouldn’t make you choose. This is your dream, Kurt; we love each other, we shouldn’t keep each other from our dreams."  
  
"I kept you from yours," Kurt says quietly.  
  
"I was out of order before and I said a lot of things that I didn’t mean. Yeah, ok, maybe I leaned towards this a little bit more because you had your heart set on New York but I’m happy here. I’d be happy here regardless of you, I think. You weren’t the only one with big city dreams, and I wanted New York. I _want_ New York. I want to rush tickets for Saturday matinees; watch fireworks in Central Park; to get coffee and cake from that little place on the corner and lounge around Washington Square Park; to visit Stonewall. All that stuff, this college, these classes, all of this is right for me. It’s what I want for myself but I want it with _you_. I didn’t follow you here blindly, Kurt, and I should never have accused you like that. We wanted the same things."  
  
Wanted. That feeling of dread is back, heavy in the pit of Kurt’s stomach. Blaine’s fingers are still tangled in his but it’s not reassuring anymore. He wants to pull away, to cover his ears with his hands like he used to when he was a child and he could hear his Mom being sick or his Dad crying; if he can’t hear it then it’s not happening. But he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t cover his ears and Blaine doesn’t stop speaking.  
  
"I think we’re on different pages right now, that’s all. You need to go to London, Kurt, you need to see what all that’s about. It’s the next step for you and me. And I need to be here."  
  
"So we’ll do long distance." Kurt sounds desperate and he knows it but he doesn’t care.  
  
Blaine swallows, hard. "Ohio to New York, that’s long distance. New York to London, Kurt... that’s _transatlantic_. I can’t do that, you can’t ask me to do that."

"We’ll take a break then, just ‘til I get back."

"That’s not how I work, you know it’s not."  
  
"Then I won’t go."  
  
"Kurt, we both know you have to go."  
  
"You’re breaking up with me."  
  
Blaine’s eyes are shining with tears and Kurt has never wanted to punch a wall so much in his life. How is this happening? He wishes so badly that he had never even read the stupid email in the first place. He tells Blaine as much but Blaine, he just smiles sadly.  
  
"Oh Kurt, _don’t ever be afraid to dream a little bigger._ "  
  
"I don’t want to go. I do not want to go. I’m not going."  
  
"Kurt," Blaine is begging.  
  
"Last week everything was fine. Let’s just pretend I never said anything. I can’t not be with you, I can’t lose you."  
  
"Kurt."  
  
"I’m not going."  
  
"Kurt!" And Kurt is hysterical and Blaine is shouting and Kurt knows this is it – whether he goes to London or not, it’s over. He loves Blaine, Blaine loves him, but there are no kisses or cuddles, no _"one last time for old times’ sake."_  There’s just damp cheeks and the door closing softly, leaving him alone with a pain in his chest that Kurt knows is his heart breaking.  
  
"I hate you, Blaine Anderson," he screams loudly at the door, a tiny part of him hoping Blaine is still in the hallway and can hear him. "I _hate_ you." But he doesn’t hate Blaine, only hates himself.

  
Then he’s well and truly gone and Kurt barely makes it to the bathroom before he throws up, emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl and then lying on the floor. The tiles are cool on his hot cheeks while he cries himself all out of tears. He had known it would hurt; he hadn’t expected it to be debilitating.

: :

Kurt sends a text later, once he’s had time to calm down Blaine thinks; he’d heard the screams as he’d left their apartment, Kurt’s use of the word _hate_ making something splinter deep in his chest. It takes him a full five minutes to gather up the courage to read it.

_I wish you all the best, Blaine._

Blaine doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. No kisses, no smiley faces, nothing that hints at what they are to each other. What they _were._ It’s Blaine’s fault, he is aware of that fact. He has no right to expect anything but it hurts all the same because it was never supposed to come to this. Kurt just doesn’t _get it_ ; what matters to Blaine is that Kurt _considered_ going away and he’d all but made the decision without even talking about it. What does that say about their relationship, really?

The problem Blaine has now is that nothing will ever be anything without Kurt. Blaine knows that with the same certainty that he knows it’s no good: he has to be able to function on his own in order to be able to function as half of something else. Blaine had never imagined he and Kurt could ever be as awful to one another as they have been in the past two weeks and none of this has to do at _all_ with how Blaine does or doesn’t feel about Kurt. God, the only thing Blaine is sure of right now is that he will love Kurt until the day he _dies_ but Blaine’s world, it _has to be_ bigger than the two of them.

Blaine thinks maybe Kurt has to know he can make it on his own. Look at his dad, look at all the opportunities there are for disaster there – and Kurt might have never been a Boy Scout but he knows it’s important to be prepared. Maybe Kurt and Blaine will get their Notebook-esque "ever after" and maybe they won’t, but if they _don’t_ , if they’re not that lucky, Kurt has to know he can go it alone. NYADA nearly crippled him because he hadn’t been prepared... he can’t let that happen again.

Maybe what this is is proof.

Proof that no matter how much it hurts, right now they just aren’t right for each other after all.

Blaine replies saying as much and isn’t at all surprised when Kurt’s almost instantaneous response just asks him to stop. Kurt has the ability to do that, to just shut down. Actually it’s not so much that Kurt turns off his feelings, more that he locks himself and them away. Blaine has seen him do it before but he has no idea how to handle it now when _he_ is the one Kurt is locking himself away, figures it might be easier this way anyway, to just cut all contact. He turns off his phone to stop himself from checking it, from hitting Kurt’s number on speed dial, and he climbs into bed.

The first 24 hours are supposed to be the hardest.

Blaine is 6 hours in, and counting.

: :

The first 24 hours are supposed to be the hardest.

What a load of bull.

6 days, 7 hours and 48 minutes and Kurt still feels like shit, it’s like a neverending flu (and it doesn’t make any sense but there it is). Every bone in his body aches, his throat is dry and sore from crying, his eyes swollen and red – he misses Blaine so much it’s taken on a physical manifestation.

He’s taken annual leave, packed a bag, hopped on a plane, and gone home. The only thing he can think of right now aside from _Blaine_ is _Dad_.

"What’s up, buddy?" Burt asks the question as soon as Kurt is in the front door. It’s not so much that his dad is astute as it is that Kurt looks like shit. He shrugs his shoulders and crosses the kitchen to open the fridge, hiding behind the door and taking a few deep lungfuls of air. _I will not cry_.

"You and Blaine had a fight or somethin’?"

And isn’t that just the point it seems like Blaine was trying to make here, that the second anything is wrong with either of them, people assume it has to do with the other?

"Or something," Kurt says dully, and then after a beat, "We broke up, actually."

If Burt is surprised then he doesn’t show it, and Kurt loves his father for that. For the way he shows a complete lack of judgement, just hands Kurt a plate for the slice of quiche that he’s pulled out of the fridge with no intention of eating. His dad asks, "That your decision or his?"

Kurt doesn’t know how to apportion blame. It absolutely isn’t what he wants, it’s not what _Blaine_ wants either. He’s swinging between blaming himself for suggesting London in the first place and blaming Blaine for taking it to this extreme. Burt is watching him carefully; he debates taking a bite of the quiche just to give himself something to do with his mouth that isn’t talking, but the thought of eating anything makes him feel sick.

"You tell me," he answers finally. "I wanted a _break_ , Blaine wanted to _break up_. Damned if I know whose decision that makes it."

He drops the plate onto the counter and turns, walking quickly out of the kitchen door before Burt can summon a response; he can’t do this with his dad, not now. Suddenly he wishes he hadn’t come because talking means hurting and he hurts plenty already.

It turns out he can't do this with his dad at all: he's teetering on a knife edge anyway and the sight of his dad's sympathetic stare, his soft “Kurt” as he follows his son into the hallway and tries to draw him into conversation, they’re enough to make Kurt's throat tighten with the effort of holding back sobs. He can't cry anymore, he _can't,_ and suddenly he’s in his dad’s arms burying himself in the flannel of his shirt, in the comforting scent of laundry detergent and grease and safety. It’s there in his dad’s arms that Kurt breaks, face buried into his chest so tight he can hardly breathe, heaving big body-wracking sobs that make his eyes burn and his chest heave and his ribs feel like they’ll crack. He cries himself hoarse to memories of last year, of sunshine and laughter and a beautiful boy who would say Kurt’s name like a prayer.  
: :

Kurt hasn’t logged on to his Facebook since the breakup, too afraid of what he’ll see there. But Rachel has been pestering; she’s set up a group message between NYADA students that Kurt has somehow become a part of and Kurt is the only one not to reply. " _You could at least_ read it, _Kurt,"_ she says.He pulls a face but she sees straight through him, staring him down with hands on her hips.

"People haven’t taken Blaine’s side, Kurt. People haven’t taken sides at all; they’re still your friends, and besides these are your friends anyway even more than they are his."

He knows it’s a bad idea the second he loads the page. His profile picture is still him and Blaine, taken last summer – it’s old but still his favorite. In it Kurt’s laughing, eyes scrunched up and smile wide, and Blaine’s lips are pressed to his cheek. It’s a punch in the stomach so forceful that it knocks the air from his lungs for a second.

There are a few notifications, he really just skims them but his stomach clenches again when one catches his eyes, forcing him to read and re-read it: _Blaine Anderson has changed your relationship status._ Kurt clicks through to Blaine’s profile before he’s even registered he’s doing it. Of course he’s changed his profile photo: you can’t even see his face in his new one, it’s another old old one from his senior year and taken in the choir room. Blaine has Sugar on his back, leaning forward so that only the top of his head and his eyes are visible as he looks up towards the camera. Kurt swallows. There it is.

_Blaine Anderson is single._

He wonders how long it had taken him to do it, to change his picture, to make their breakup public – it smarts because it’s taken ‘til now for Kurt to even pluck up the courage to look at this stupid website and as far as social networking goes, Blaine is moving on with his life. He wonders why seeing it in black and white, seeing it as "Facebook Official" makes it seem more real than the fact they haven’t had any contact whatsoever in weeks.

He scrolls down the page – it looks the same as ever. Blaine has been tagged in the odd post, has a couple of messages on his wall from people at school but there’s nothing that really gives Kurt any insight into what he’s doing, or how he is. Nothing until almost the bottom of the page, in a status that makes Kurt’s fingers curl and uncurl around the mouse, cursor hovering over the comment box.

**_Blaine Anderson:_ ** _what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You can just call me the Hulk._

How, Kurt thinks, for the millionth time, did it ever come to this? He changes his own profile picture, uploading one off his phone that Rachel’s friend had taken a week ago, maybe two: it’d been taken the night Kurt returned from his impromptu trip to Ohio and Rachel had dragged him out to Callbacks, declaring that the only way he would ever get over Blaine was to properly emote, through song. In it Kurt is leaning against the piano in the bar, ankles crossed, microphone in hand. He’s not looking in the direction of the camera and the look on his face is nothing short of mournful. In the way that Rachel sees herself as a star this friend fancies herself as a photographer and Kurt had rolled her eyes when she’d emailed it over but it says what he wants it to say right now: _I’m here and I’m OK, but I’m missing you, Blaine._

_I don’t know how to stop missing you._

: :

"Hey."

The touch is gentle on Blaine’s elbow and he startles, turning too fast and almost sending the person behind him flying.

"Rachel."

This is weird. It feels _weird_ , yet it shouldn’t, not really. Rachel is as much his friend as she is Kurt’s but still, he hasn’t seen her since the breakup. Hasn’t known how to, really. He responded as non-commitally as possible to the few emails and Facebook messages she’d sent him in the weeks after, citing extra shifts and a heavy workload as an excuse not to be anywhere Kurt might be, anywhere where he might have to see him or even just talk about him. Seeing Rachel now out of the blue like this makes his throat tighten a little, which is _ridiculous_ , it’s just Rachel: seeing her shouldn’t make him cry. He wishes he’d made more of an effort this morning, had dressed a little better and paid more attention to his hair – but he’d only been slipping out for bread. Now it’s going to get back to Kurt that Blaine is falling apart at the seams without him, which, maybe that’s true but that doesn’t mean Blaine wants Kurt knowing that.

"I thought it was you," Rachel says brightly, reaching for his elbow again and squeezing. "But I couldn’t be sure. You seem a little…unkempt. I’m not sure if the unshaven look really fits in with your style, Blaine, honestly. But then..." She looks him over from head to toe and Blaine can’t help but run a hand over his stubble self-consciously, adding shaving to the list of things he wishes he’d done that morning. He longs for a tie. "I’m not really sure anything about you right now fits in with your usual style. Is this because of Kurt? Are you... trying to reinvent yourself?”

He had forgotten, almost, what conversation with Rachel Berry could be like. How she’s like an express train; how she steamrolls right in and makes assumptions and runs with them; how utterly exhausting it can be.

He shrugs, tries to offer her a smile that feels more like a wince of pain and says quietly, "I’m just having a lazy day I guess."

"Longer than a day judging by that beard." And it’s so reminiscent of something Kurt would say that it makes his breath catch. She runs her hand down his arm to take hold of his hand, tugging him to the edge of the sidewalk and out of the way of passersby and then, still holding his hand and with her very best expression of concern, she asks, "How have you _been,_ Blaine? I haven’t seen you in so long, I miss you. I worry about you. I know Kurt is my best friend, but I love you, too."

Fuck. He’s still not sure how he’s supposed to answer that question. _How have you been_? Awful. That’s the honest truth. Awful and angry and miserable and so fucking _lonely_.

"I’m alright." He tries for a smile again, marginally more successful this time around, and squeezes Rachel’s hand in return. "Really. I’m alright. It’s been a weird few weeks, but I’m alright."

He pauses, and then, "How’s Kurt?"

He doesn’t know why he’s asked, can’t think of a single possible way that isn’t going to hurt, but he feels starved. Starved of Kurt. Like spending weeks in a desert and almost dying of thirst, you’ll gorge yourself on water as soon as you’re rescued even though you know that any more than a sip will make you sick. Rachel is here and she knows how Kurt is and what he’s been doing and whether he misses Blaine, even at all, and Blaine will take any scrap of information she can throw at him, will hold it close even if it hurts.

Rachel smiles. "You know Kurt."

And ain’t that just the killer: Blaine does.

"I haven’t seen all that much of him to be honest," she says. "I’ve been exceptionally busy as I’m sure you can imagine, and it’s been difficult to get our schedules to align. He went to Ohio for a few days, saw his dad, and he’s been busy too. Isabelle has had him working long hours and whenever I’ve tried to pin him down he’s been gallivanting off to this party or that dinner. He certainly hasn’t been sitting at home unshaven and wearing sweatpants like some _couch potato_ anyway." She laughs, poking him playfully in the stomach. Blaine knows she can’t have meant it cruelly – Rachel is rarely malicious, she just doesn’t _think_ sometimes – but still: she might as well have used a knife.

 _He certainly hasn’t been sitting at home like some couch potato_.

Blaine hadn’t expected him to be doing that and he certainly doesn’t want Kurt to feel as wretched as he does but still, hearing that Kurt is partying so hard these days that he barely has time even for Rachel... well, it feels like shit, truth be told.

: :

  
"Of course I had to come," Santana says wearily, pushing past Blaine and into the apartment.  
  
 _The_ apartment, not _his_ apartment, not _their_ apartment. He doesn’t have an apartment anymore, not since he and Kurt...split. He has an airbed in his friend Jack’s mailbox-sized spare room and on top of that, a broken heart.  
  
He also has Santana Lopez on the doorstep, complete with rucksack, apparently.  
  
If Blaine was in a state where he could summon emotion, his reaction when he answered his cell to her " _Blanderson, I’m just about to get a cab. Gimme your address_ ," would have been surprise, although by now he should know better than to ever be surprised by Santana. She’s supposed to be in Louisville. He spoke to her, like, yesterday: she’d literally just finished cheerleading practise when she’d called him, all out of breath and uncharacteristically chirpy, and unless she’s skipping some classes – which is a definite possibility – it makes no sense for her to be here right now. Maybe he’d been a little rude when he answered the door, his "What are you doing here?" probably a little less welcoming than it should have been. His "You didn’t have to come," though, was entirely genuine, because really she hadn’t had to and he half-wishes she hadn’t – he can barely look after himself right now nevermind deal with Santana.  
  
"You’ve cried down the phone at me every night for a month, fuck’s sake. At least if I’m here you can actually pay for the copious amounts of alcohol I need to drown my sorrows after speaking to you. Besides, I’m overdue for a vacation, you can show me the sights." She drops her rucksack by her feet, makes jazz hands and rolls her eyes, and in that second Blaine has never been so pleased to see anybody in his life.  
  
"The sights," he echoes dully, pushing the door closed behind her and wondering how she’d react if he were to pull her into a bear hug and never let go. His instincts are telling him it wouldn’t be favorably; one thing Santana categorically is not is touchy-feely, but Blaine is half willing to take the chance as he feels like he has been starved of human affection for so long (eight weeks, nine and a half if you count the time he spent fighting with Kurt and discount the angry sex). He can barely remember what it feels like to be held and he hurts, just everywhere, he just wants somebody to put their arms around him and tell him it’s all going to be ok and he doesn’t even care if that person is Santana or if it makes him pathetic and melodramatic. He has broken up with Kurt and he’s pretty sure that entitles him to be pathetic for the rest of forever.  
  
"Place’s nice," Santana says appraisingly, "although clearly lacking in Hummel’s particular brand of interior design. You, on the other hand, look like shit."  
  
"’Tana." Blaine feels his eyes begin to fill up and he is a split second away from throwing himself into her arms when she holds up a hand in front of him, cutting him off and making him take a small step backwards. He’d forgotten how scary she could be without even trying.  
  
"Woah. No way. There is a time and a place for cuddling and this is not it.  I have been travelling since six this morning – which I hope you appreciate, by the way, because it goes against everything I believe in to see six o’clock more than once in day – and I am fucked, and not in the good way. Consider me checked into Heartbreak Hotel and show me my boudoir."  
  
"There is no boudoir," Blaine says feebly, because there isn’t, the apartment is small and there’s just Jack’s room and his airbed. And the sofa, but Santana will never sleep on the sofa. Santana rolls her eyes like Blaine is just the stupidest person she’s ever met, but his brain won’t work and he doesn’t know what to do.  
  
"Sorry?" he tries and she sighs, heavily.  
  
"Christ’s sake, you lost your boyfriend, not your brain. Where do you sleep?"  
  
Oh. Of course. He points towards his room and she throws her rucksack over her shoulder and sashays towards the door, throwing a "bring me a glass of water" back over her shoulder. Blaine swallows down the lump in his throat and heads to the kitchen.  
  
Santana is under the covers by the time Blaine joins her in the bedroom, her clothes in a pile by the air mattress and she in just her underwear. Once upon a time he would have freaked out, blushed a deep red and fallen over his feet in his hurry to throw a t-shirt at her but he’s long since learnt that she only does it for a reaction; she gets some weird kick out of the gay boy getting all worked up over her boobs. Now he just ignores whatever state of undress she chooses to be in and goes with it, as long as she’s never actually naked. There has to be a line.  
  
"I’m really glad you’re here," he admits. Santana smiles softly and pats the mattress beside her, indicating he should join her.  
  
"Of course you are. Now sleep."  
  
He kicks off his jeans and grabs his pajama bottoms before clambering in beside her. Santana’s right, for once: he probably should sleep, he hasn’t been doing much of that lately and there’s not a lot else he can do until she wakes up anyway. She’s on her back and he shuffles closer to her, sliding his foot between both of hers and resting his head on her shoulder.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing?" She wriggles a little. "This is not cool. Even if you’d made me come my brains out you wouldn’t get to snuggle. Shuffle back on over to your own side." She pokes him in the ribs but Blaine ignores her, shuffling a little closer and dropping an arm across her waist. Her breath is warm as she huffs an exasperated sigh into his hair but she doesn’t make any more effort to break free and as Blaine closes his eyes he’s sure he feels her press a kiss to his hair.  
  
Santana smells like cherries; it’s familiar and reminds him of the year before he moved to New York when it was easier, when Santana spent more nights than he can remember eating popcorn in his bed as they watched trashy movies and MTV true life episodes and lamented the tragedies of their respective lives. She’d pulled him to shreds for being so devoted to Kurt and he’d held her while she cried over Brittany, promising to never tell a soul.  
  
He didn’t expect to fall asleep, certainly didn’t expect to fall into such a deep and dreamless sleep, so he feels rather disoriented and put out when he’s jolted awake by his door crashing open. Jack’s voice yells, "Blaine, what are you… _Oh, sh–_ "  
  
The words die in his friend’s mouth as he stands, slackjawed and staring. Blaine rubs his eyes in half awake confusion and follows Jack’s gaze and oh.

Santana.  
  
She’d pushed the covers down to her waist as they slept, and lies toned and gorgeous in a bright red bra. Blaine’s arm across her waist holds her close while one long and equally toned leg of hers hangs over the side of the mattress.  
  
"Cat got your tongue?" She asks dryly, sitting up and stretching, arching her back just so – Blaine is sure Jack’s eyes are going to pop out of his head and Blaine knows she’s doing it on purpose.  
  
"Shit, Blaine."  
  
Blaine can’t tell if his friend is impressed, confused, or disgusted (or perhaps a combination of the three). Jack shakes his head slowly, trying to not focus on Santana’s breasts, and as Santana throws her head back and cackles, Blaine jumps to his feet.  
  
"Put some clothes on," he hisses at her, banging his knee on the doorframe in his effort to follow his friend. "Jack, wait."  
  
"What the hell, man?" Jack rounds on him as soon as they reach the living room. "I mean, I know it’s none of my business and you probably do need to start getting over Kurt but seriously, what the hell? I did not expect to come home and find some hot random in your bed."  
  
"She’s not random," Blaine says quickly, as though that’s even the issue. "It’s Santana."  
  
"Right." Jack nods his head. "Santana. Still, man, hot girl in your bed. What the actual hell? You’re your own person, I know that, but I seriously do not think this is healthy. You can’t use that girl to get over whatever sexuality crisis you’re having because you broke up with Kurt."  
  
"It’s just _Santana_ , she’s an old– she’s come to... I’m not having a sexuality–” Blaine sighs. “We were just sleeping."  
  
"Just sleeping." Jack raises his eyebrows. "Right. And the fact that she is smokin’ hot and practically naked and you were just clinging to her. That’s just _Santana_ , right?"  
  
"Right." Blaine nods fast and Jack raises his eyebrows again.  
  
"Seriously, man, give me some credit. Neither of us is that naïve."  
  
"He thinks you tapped this," Santana states wandering out of the bedroom, thankfully wearing more than she had been a minute ago and ruffling Blaine’s hair before turning her focus to Jack. "He did not tap this. This girl” – she points to herself – "has standards; I don’t think there is any alternate universe where I would be attracted to men that looked like they got lost on the way back to Middle Earth."  
  
"I’m amazed you’ve even heard of Middle Earth. Have you ever read an actual book?" Blaine fires back. Santana just grins. ~~  
~~  
Blaine turns to Jack, pointedly ignoring Santana. "And even if I was interested in girls, you can absolutely guarantee she’d be the last one I’d look at. In fact, even if she were the last girl on Earth, I still wouldn’t–"  
  
"No ‘cos even if I was the last girl alive you could still go for lady-face Hummel, right? He’s close enough to a."  
  
Blaine rounds on her then, hands curled into fists and eye blazing: "You are such a bitch! Don’t bring Kurt into this, you don’t get to talk about him like that."  
  
"Right." Jack is staring at them, confused because he totally just caught them in bed together and yet they haven’t said a single nice word to each other since. "...You’re really not sleeping with her then?"  
  
"No," Santana says, giving Blaine a " _why are your friends so stupid?_ " eyeroll.  
  
"Likes girls..." – she points to herself – "Likes boys." She points to Blaine before stepping forward and slipping her arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Sorry I suck. I forgot you might not be ready to joke about him yet."  
  
He will never be able to listen to Santana’s digs about Kurt, not ever. He can take her with a grain of salt most of the time, loves her enough to not care about the cutting remarks she throws in _his_ direction without stopping for breath, but it’s always been different when it comes to Kurt, it always will be. She doesn’t _mean_ it (not in her usual way) and she just apologized – which he’s not sure he’s ever witnessed before – _and_ she’s come all the way out here just to make sure he’s alright.  
  
"S’alright." Blaine squeezes her back and Jack shakes his head, looking at them in bewilderment.  
  
"That was a joke? I’m sorry, what is going on here?"  
  
"It’s not rocket science, beach bum." Jack runs a hand through his blonde hair defensively and Blaine swallows down the urge to smile. "What’s going on is that Auntie ‘Tana is in town and Blainers is about to turn his frown upside down." She turns to Blaine and shimmies. "Now go get your sexy on because you and I are takin’ your eyebrows dancing."  
  
"Are you sure…" Jack looks nervously from Santana to Blaine and back again. “I mean, Blaine’s not in the best of places right now. I don’t know if…."  
  
Santana sighs heavily, as though this is a conversation she really doesn’t have the energy for. "Don’t be tiresome. You’ve known him for what? Less than a year? Don’t tell me what Blaine needs because I’mma tell you a story, surfer boy: I’m the one that was there in high school when he was almost blinded, I’m the one that held his hand his entire fucking senior year while Kurt was miles away, I’m the one that was a phone call away when he fought with his brother or when his dad was being a douche or when Kurt had stuff going on and couldn’t get back... I’m the one he’s wept down the phone to every single night he’s needed it – which says a lot about you, actually, because you fucking live with him. Fact is, I know him and I know that what he needs right now is to get drunk and remember what fun tastes like. You need to shut the fuck up and get ready to come with us, unless those highlights in your hair have bleached away your ability to have a good time.”

  
"I’m right here," Blaine says indignantly, hand on hips as he fixes Santana with his best glare. "And your mouth is like a sewer."  
  
"Whatever. I’m not even sure why you’re still standing here when I already said _go get your sexy on._ And lose the bowtie, Bowtie. Tonight is a neckwear-free zone. Wear that blue shirt, that’s almost hot."  
  
: :

"Karaoke..." Blaine says, dully. "Santana, I’m really not sure."

Which is a lie, actually, because Blaine is absolutely 100 percent sure.

He is sure that the last thing he wants to do right now is sing to a bar full of people. It’s proof positive, really, that he’s in a bad way – singing, especially for an audience and often about his feelings, is pretty much what he lives for. It sounds awful now though, the thought of laying himself bare in front of a roomful of strangers, because he knows if he sings that’s what he’ll have to do: there is no way he can sing just to entertain, no way he can stand in front of a microphone and sing some peppy pop song like he’s fine. If he’s doing it then he has to be expressing and he does not want to express, doesn’t know what he _would_ express even because he doesn’t think there is a song in the world that quite gets across how he feels now. He’s not sure which emotion he’d draw from because he feels like he’s in a cavern, like everything around him is echoey and muted and dark and all he is aware of is this gaping Kurt-shaped _hole._ Everything seems far away and far too close at the same time. His stomach feels hollow, like he hasn’t had a solid meal in days, and his chest feels tight. How is he supposed to _sing_ about that?

He’s not even sure he can remember how to make his voice work, really.

He wishes he was still home, that he wasn’t in too-tight jeans and a polo shirt with not enough gel in his hair and Santana’s arm looped through his. That he could just wallow. He’s gotten good at that, at wallowing.

"I don’t remember asking for your opinion," Santana says, and she tugs him into the bar. He could protest, he supposes, pull free and say _no_ and turn around and head home – but God, this is Santana and her mind’s made up. Blaine doesn’t have that kind of energy right now.

He looks at Jack, widens his eyes in a _"help me"_ expression. Jack just shrugs: he’s terrified of Santana. Blaine can’t say he blames him.

"Listen," she practically yells into his ear and Blaine winces, ducks his head away from her a little. "I _know_ you don’t think you’re ready for this, but here’s the deal: after a breakup you have to get back on it. You want to wallow but you can’t. You have to hold your head up high and just fake it ‘til you make it, otherwise you’ll rot away. You’re too chirpy to rot, Warbler."

"What if I never make it?" Blaine says. She summons a bartender and orders something that’s served in a freaking fishbowl.

"You’ll make it," Santana says wisely, passing him a straw. "That’s why I’m here."

Whatever the frighteningly pink drink is (that he’s drinking from a fishbowl – and his dad would so not be cool with any of this), it’s nice. It tastes like fruit and like summer and as he sips and Santana pores over karaoke books, scribbling notes on napkins, he feels himself begin to loosen up a little. He doesn’t feel _better_ exactly – he still misses Kurt, he still feels like his life is a veritable disaster – he justs feels a little more blurry now, like all the bad stuff is a little fuzzy around the edges. Even though he rolls his eyes he doesn’t stop Santana from pulling him to his feet when their names are called.

"Karaoke heals the _soul_ ," she tells him and Blaine just nods his head. Gotta be worth a try, right?

All of a sudden he’s Elton John and she’s Kiki Dee; it takes approximately two bars of music before he feels it take him over. They act out the song, Blaine asking Santana not to go breaking his heart and her in her little black dress and glossy wavy hair, shimmying before him and telling him she couldn’t if she tried.

Which is true: Blaine’s heart is already broken.

There’s something comforting to standing there in front of a room full of strangers as they nod their heads in time, some of them clapping and all of them soaking up the performance. Something comforting about it being Santana by his side. It reminds him somehow of Glee Club, of high school, of Kurt’s senior year when they’d sung "Perfect"to her in the choir room. Everything had seemed so simple when he thought he’d be singing with Kurt for always.

She must be feeling the same because she leans into him when they’re done, says, "Remember when you sang Whitney to Kurt in front of all of us back at school?"

Blaine laughs at the memory – he’d thought his heart had been ripped from his chest that day; little had he known.

" _It’s not right, but it’s ok,_ " Santana sings softly.

Blaine’s not so sure it is, really, but he doesn’t want to think about it too much, orders another fishbowl and raises an eyebrow at Jack when he turns up his nose.

"Drinking a pink drink won’t turn you _gay,_ Jack," he teases. Jack just punches him in the arm and orders a beer.

They drink and they laugh and Santana flirts (with guys and girls alike). A guy sends a shot over the bar to Blaine and he thinks about refusing it at first, doesn’t want to lead anybody on, but Jack and Santana are telling him to drink it and he’s tipsy and it feels _good_ to be wanted like that after all these weeks; to be noticed, even though there isn’t a chance in hell he’ll act on it. He raises the glass, looks the guy right in the eye with a wink and a smile and downs it in one. It burns as he swallows, makes him feel warm all the way down to his stomach, and he laughs as he bangs the glass back down on the bar.

Santana sings “Valerie _,”_ Jack forgets his earlier whispered " _she puts the fear of fucking God in me, Anderson, who the hell_ is _she?"_ and declares himself to be in love, and Blaine wonders how many times that’s happened before: in Lima, in Kentucky, if Santana leaves broken hearts wherever she goes, if she takes a piece of everybody else’s because a part of hers will always be with Brittany.

He orders another cocktail.

They’re not strong, probably watered down – too cheap to not be, really, even at Happy Hour prices – and all in all, it’s not enough to have him falling over but enough to smooth out the rough edges of his day. His life. Enough to make him tipsy enough to want to sing Pink. Soon enough he’s bouncing up and down on the small stage, chanting, _"I am a rock star, I got my rock moves, and I don't want you tonight"_ like he means it.

Santana, it seems, was right: maybe Blaine did need to remember what fun was. Prove to himself that he doesn’t begin and end with Kurt.

: :

The thing about New York is that even when your heart is broken, you can’t help but be swept away in the wonder of it, and Kurt is. Even after all this time the city blows him away. He fills what little free time he has like a tourist, keeping himself busy: walking in the park, catching the Staten Island ferry, buying tickets for off-off-Broadway shows (and letting the tears stream down his face in the dark, knowing nobody can see and if they did they wouldn’t care). He sends postcards home, Skypes with his dad a couple times a week. Kurt isn’t lying when he says New York is still amazing, and by forcing a smile onto his face that – through the grainy webcam – looks like it might reach his eyes he convinces his dad that he’s doing okay. Tries not to let on that while work is demanding and his every free minute is filled with activity after activity all the time, in the background is the constant hum of _BlaineBlaineBlaine_.

Kurt never expected it to end up this way.  
  
He never expected it to end period, but it had and it had been horrible and he doesn’t think he’s slept properly since. He’d hoped at first that it would be amicable at least, because he still loved Blaine, Blaine still loved him – how could there be animosity where there was that much love? The love had been the problem, so it seemed. They loved each other too much to be able to hug and walk away with a " _you can keep my green sweater; it matches your eyes_ " and a " _have a nice life."_ Instead there had been one single calm, rational conversation, a _"this isn’t working"_ and _"it just makes sense"_  that had quickly turned into countless messy fights and anger and tears and recriminations. It had turned into Kurt actually genuinely wondering if Blaine had met someone else and was just using the internship (Kurt had saidhe’d _pass it up, for fuck’s sake_ )as an excuse. It had devolved until Kurt could barely pick out recognizable features of either Blaine or himself in the wreckage. Blaine had moved out (with that damn green sweater) and Kurt had eaten a pint of ice cream a day for a week and a half, had been unable to make a smile reach his eyes for months, and now here he is.

It’s a Friday night and Kurt is curled in on himself on the sofa, Rachel’s bare toes tucked beneath his denim-clad thigh as they share ice cream from the tub and she tries to engage him in conversation; as she tries, bless her heart, to get him to bare his soul to her. It won't work, Kurt thinks, because if he is to continue to survive this then he cannot let himself think about Blaine. He hasn't allowed himself to check Blaine’s Facebook or Twitter since (other than that one time), hasn’t heard from him since that final text, and although he has hovered his thumb over the speed dial too many times to count, he has never hit call. He thinks it’s for the best, really; like ripping off a Band-aid.

"Why don’t you just _call_ him?" Rachel asks, following his gaze as he eyes his cell for probably the millionth time that evening.

"And say what?" Kurt bites, regretting his tone instantly and patting her ankle in apology.

"Say whatever you need to say to fix it. Tell him what’s really going on with London. Kurt, it’s been weeks and you aren’t getting over this; you’re miserable."

Kurt shakes his head, digging around in the ice cream for a chunk of cookie dough. "I can’t."

"Why can’t you?"

"Because– fine, yes, I am miserable. I am. But I can’t say the things I need to say to fix it because I don’t know what they _are_ and besides, he is the one that left. And besides _that_ , there are worse things in life than this, I’m sure. I’ll be fine. Eventually."

Rachel looks disbelieving. Kurt can’t say he blames her, sometimes he isn’t sure he believes himself. He never thought it was possible to miss somebody in the way he misses Blaine.

"You’re telling me you don’t want to be with him?"

"We’re going round in circles," Kurt snaps. He’s frustrated; they’ve had this conversation so many times and Kurt is exhausted. It’s not rocket science and Rachel isn’t stupid. Each time she sits and offers ice cream and cuddles and advice and tries to make him see the error of his ways it’s like she’s re-opening the wound all over again. He doesn’t know what’s so hard to understand. He loves Blaine. He is sure Blaine loves him, but it seems that love isn’t enough: they are not together, they can’t be together and that is that.

"He didn’t look great when I saw him. Kurt, he looked lost.” She says it quietly, ignoring the tone of Kurt’s voice and changing tack. That’s it, that’s Kurt’s limit – does she think he doesn’t _know_? He doesn’t need reports from her to know that Blaine will be a mess, he can feel it deep in his bones and it’s slowly killing him. He shoves his spoon hard into the ice cream and jumps to his feet.

"Enough," he barks, hands curled into fists by his side, eyes blazing. "Just, just stop it. If you want to _help_ me Rachel, then please don’t make me talk about him."

Rachel shrugs but doesn’t speak, and in one of her more perceptive moments, she reaches for the remote and turns on the television.

: :

“How come you’re in New York?” Kurt asks, watching the girl sitting across from him appraisingly.

Santana Lopez is the last person Kurt expected to hear from; she’s always been more Blaine’s friend than his. It’s not that Kurt doesn’t like her, more that they just don’t have all that much in common other than New Directions and being gay, and Kurt doesn’t think either of those things should define him even though in their own way they both do, to a point. It’s funny, the way it ended up working out in school, how he’d gone from social outcast to being almost at the other end of the scale; how being in Glee threw together this group of total misfits with nothing in common but voice and forged a somewhat unbreakable bond between them. He’d felt the same about Rachel as he does about Santana once – God, he used to despise her – except Rachel and him, they do have things in common. She is without a shadow of a _doubt_ his best friend, except for Blaine... She _is_ his best friend, then, and that realization instantly makes his chest tighten.

However, Santana has always been a different story. While he knows that she and Blaine forged some kind of friendship over Sebastian and Chandler, over both being apart from the people they loved last year, he still doesn’t quite know how to take her and he’s pretty much convinced that were it not for their friend-of-friend history she wouldn’t give him the time of day. So yeah, her name had been the last one he’d ever expected to see lighting up the screen of his cell this morning, asking him (well, _telling_ him, really) to come out for coffee.

"I’m on vacation," she answers with a shrug.

Kurt raises an eyebrow. Somehow, call him cynical, he doesn’t quite believe her. Santana raises an eyebrow back.

"I saw your Facebook," she says. It’s a swift subject change that pulls no punches and Kurt feels his stomach drop.

He tries to stay off that site as much as he can, especially now. No sense in torturing himself, after all. He hadn’t removed Blaine as a friend but had ticked that box so that he wouldn’t show up in his notifications, and then he’d tried to stay away. If there’s one thing Kurt has it’s self control and he hasn’t checked Blaine’s page once since that day, though he knows that his own is probably pretty busy. Networking is important in Kurt’s line of work: there’s a lot of schmoozing, a lot of events that look like parties but feel like work, a lot of photographs that he never really wants taken, and being tagged in this photo or being checked in at that event probably makes him seem like he’s living the high life, like there isn’t a Blaine-shaped hole in his life that is gaping and painful.

"It’s not how it seems," he tries. It sounds feeble to his own ears and he has no idea why he’s trying to defend himself. Santana just raises her eyebrow further.

"It doesn’t _seem_ like anything. Relax, it’s not like there’s photos all over the internet of you fucking some Vogue model." Kurt feels himself blush, notices Santana’s smirk and hates himself and her in equal measure. "And you’re entitled to move on with your life if that’s what you want to do. Fuck’s sake, I’m _glad_ you’re not moping around too. There’s only so much of _that_ I can take. Just, if I’ve seen it then Blaine probably has too."

And there it is, right out in the open, and Kurt’s heart clenches. Kurt appears to be moving on and Santana is hinting that Blaine isn’t – the whole situation is so unbelievably shitty that sometimes Kurt can’t quite believe that this is really his life. He does not need Santana turning up and making veiled comments about his supposed party lifestyle because the thing is, the thing he can’t quite get past is that Santana is obviously trying to make a point about Kurt picking back up and rubbing Blaine’s nose in it, but what she doesn’t realise is that she’s entirely wrong. Kurt hasn’t moved whatsoever; he’s still stuck in that horrible moment weeks ago when he’d last seen Blaine, he plays it over and over and over in his head and each time it breaks his heart. He’s literally living on autopilot right now no matter what it looks like, and it’s just a website – you can’t see that Kurt’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes in any of those photographs or that after each of those stupid networking events Isabelle sends him to in a misguided attempt to _heal_ him, Kurt cries himself to sleep. Even though some, maybe most, of the people he spends time with are becoming friends, not a single one of them is Blaine.

"I can’t help what Blaine sees," he says and has no idea where it comes from, why he sounds like he doesn’t care, except who is he kidding? He’s angry at Blaine and maybe that’s unfair but he can’t help it. " _He_ broke up with _me._ If he wanted to be there then he could be."

"Is it as simple as that, though?" Santana asks, narrowing her eyes and studying him, her stare so piercing that he has to look away. "There’s two sides to every story."

"And of course you’ll take Blaine’s," Kurt says bitterly. He doesn’t blame her. Santana barely tolerates him but Blaine is one of her few soft spots – God, that will never make sense. He wonders if Rachel would do this for him, sit Blaine down and take him to task – he’s sure that’s what he has coming from Santana. He hopes not, doesn’t want Blaine and Rachel to talk, not about this; doesn’t want her to interfere; doesn’t want her to know anything about Blaine and what he’s doing because if she knew then of course he himself would want to know... and he’s finding the only way he can even get through the day is by pretending Blaine Anderson doesn’t exist. He’s pretty shit at it, actually, but it’s the only coping strategy he has. And so he perseveres.

"I don’t plan on taking any side," she retorts. "There is no limit to the number of fucks I couldn’t give about your little gay melodrama. I just say how I see it and what I see is you pretending like you’re A-okay, although fuck knows who you’re trying to kid, actually, because I sure as hell ain’t fooled. And Blaine? Well, ‘s not my place to share his personal business, but I’ve been with him this weekend and he sure as _hell_ is not getting around as much as you are."

: :

If there is something that Blaine misses as much as he misses Kurt, it’s kissing. Specifically, it’s kissing Kurt. Once upon a time he would sit for hours curled with Kurt on the sofa and they would kiss as though it was going out of fashion. He never wanted to stop, desperate to burn the feel of Kurt’s lips onto his own, wondering how he would survive without him, even if the next time was only ever a day away.  
  
Kissing Kurt had become as vital to Blaine’s survival as oxygen, like he needed the feel of Kurt’s lips on his in order to even make it through the day. They would lay on their sofa, _their sofa_ (that never got old), legs entwined, Kurt's hands snaking underneath Blaine’s top as he kissed him, making him quiver with longing. They’d kiss and kiss and kiss for hours, until eventually Kurt would release Blaine from his clothing and make love to him right there on the sofa, not breaking the kiss for a second until he collapsed against him, sated.  
  
Blaine had planned on kissing Kurt Hummel for the rest of forever. Then suddenly it had all changed, things had gone wrong, and Blaine wasn’t one half of KurtandBlaine but just Blaine again.  
  
Blaine Anderson, single in New York and sleeping on an airbed in a friend’s spare room because he has nowhere else to go.  
  
It’s been 15 weeks. The leaves are back on the trees and the sky is blue again, rather than the murky gray of winter. Spring is turning slowly into summer, days are longer and hotter, Blaine is still alone.

15 weeks.  
  
15 weeks of missing Kurt so badly every minute that sometimes Blaine forgets how to breathe; of checking his cell obsessively for a text that never comes; of his thumb hovering over the "call" button but never quite being able to press it; of checking Kurt’s Facebook every night, feeling sick to his stomach when it becomes more and more apparent that Kurt is moving on.  He spent the first few weeks lying awake at night, replaying vicious fights in his head, listening to himself yell at Kurt that he didn’t want to hear his excuses any more or listen to his empty promises; that " _it’s over, Kurt, why are you making this so hard,_ " that they were both different people – until the sound of his own voice and the jumble of emotions taking up too much space in his head became more than he could handle. He’s started taking Santana’s advice and going to bars and getting drunk and losing himself in faceless kisses because what else is he supposed to do? It’s that or go mad. Sometimes he feels like he’s gone mad regardless.  
  
He sighs heavily and, leaning back, presses his fingers against his eyes until he can see stars. This is ridiculous. The worst part about having so much time on his hands is it means he has nothing to do but sit about like some lovestruck teenager thinking about kissing, and he is driving himself slowly bonkers; there’s so much stuff he’s supposed to be concentrating on but his mind keeps going round in circles. _Kurt, Kurt, Kurt._  
  
The interesting thing is that it isn't the sex he misses, it’s the affection; the feeling of being loved. He reaches out, fastening his fingers around the glass of water that sits in between piles of papers, lifts it to his lips and sips. This is a waste of time; whatever the hell it is that is bugging him isn't going away. With a resigned sigh he pushes his chair back, grabs his jacket and, giving the room a last cursory glance, flicks off the light. Screw his finals.  
  
: :  
  
He didn’t mean to end up here, standing across from his old apartment building like some kind of stalker ex that can’t let go. He didn’t mean to, yet he’s wound up here and now he can’t quite get over how everything is still exactly the same – how can it look exactly the same when somewhere in that building there is his heart in a box?  
  
Blaine shoves his hands deep into his jacket pockets. There should be some kind of physical evidence, he thinks, maybe a plaque that states that this is the place where his world caved in.  
  
He shivers even though it’s not all that cold out; it feels weird being here, wrong and right all at the same time, and he is about to give up torturing himself and go and grab a slice of pizza before heading back to his pile of work when he notices somebody stop across the road, outside the building. The figure is fumbling in his pockets for something and Blaine’s heart lurches in his chest as he crosses the road towards him, his legs seeming to have taken on a mind of their own, taking him where he isn’t sure he wants to go.  
  
Kurt.  
  
Kurt who still makes him feel alive just by being in the same general vicinity.  
  
Kurt stops and looks up as Blaine reaches his side, wearing a raised eyebrow and a grin that he really really hopes doesn’t look as forced as it is. He can do this, he can. He can be cool and calm and normal and it will all be fine.  
  
He thinks he might be sick.  
  
“Looking for something?"  
  
Kurt swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Their eyes meeting for the briefest of seconds before Kurt looks away. "Uhm...my– my keys, I seem to have..." he trails off, swallowing hard again, passing a hand over his face.  
  
"Careless," Blaine states, and then wonders why he’s being so flippant because this? It isn’t him. ‘Kurt Hummel, how very unlike you.’  
  
Kurt nods his head, the power of speech somehow having left him, and Blaine watches him for a second as he struggles to compose himself, straightening his collar, running his tongue over dry lips ( _fuck_ Blaine is jealous of Kurt’s tongue right now). He has a chance to take in the boy in front of him: a mouth that has always been distractingly kissable; eyes you could lose yourself in if you were that way inclined (and Blaine is, he always always is); a body that, beneath the shirt and beautiful jacket, hints at still being in the perfect shape Blaine remembers. He finds himself wondering, as he shifts nervously from one foot to the other, what it would be like to kiss him.  
  
"Why," he mutters to himself, just trying the words out, "can’t we just kiss and make up?”

  
"Sorry?" Kurt looks startled which is embarrassing because he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He hopes Kurt couldn’t make out the words.  
  
"Blaine.” Suddenly Kurt is glaring at him, his eyes narrowed as though he has only just realized who he’s talking to. "What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
Blaine is standing in front of him, smiling like he always did, and Kurt has to ball his hands into fists so tightly that he knows his nails will leave marks on the heel of his hand, just to stop himself from reaching out and touching him. Blaine’s is a smile that’s a harsh reminder of slamming doors and regrets and it hurts Kurt to look at him.  
  
Blaine looks well, a little older maybe – which is silly, Kurt thinks, because nobody ages noticeably in 15 weeks. His hair is free from gel and there’s stubble on his face as though somebody went at him with a pencil in his sleep. He looks like he used to after long weekends spent curled up in bed, in the days when nothing existed outside of Kurt’s arms, when showering, shaving, doing his hair were all things that kept him from pressing kisses along Kurt’s jaw or sucking gently on his collarbone; the heady days when love really _was_ enough... and it makes Kurt want to kiss him so much that he feels his chest tighten painfully.  
  
“How’ve you been?” Kurt asks the question carefully, working hard on his tone of voice, managing to almost make it sound like he doesn’t care really, is just being polite. But Blaine knows him better than that and knows Kurt cares. He cares so much.  
  
Blaine grins, that lopsided half grin that always lets him have his way and he talks, too easily, about what he’s done, where he’s been, about the life that could have been Kurt’s to share. Kurt drinks it in, thirsty for the knowledge, thirsty for Blaine. He winds up drunk on almost four months of what-could-have-been and he swallows down the " _Blaine, I love you so much_ " that are the only words he ever wants to say to Blaine, really, because they had their chance and they blew it. As far as Blaine knows Kurt is leaving in just under a week and he has no idea why Blaine is here. He can’t tell him he’s not going at all, actually, because Isabelle has offered him the chance to head up a project here and besides, he doesn’t want to be an ocean away from his dad. What does it matter; he can’t do anything about that, not now.  
  
Blaine pauses, looks at Kurt, and Kurt blushes, looks away. He has never been able to hold Blaine’s gaze and he twiddles his fingers nervously before spitting the words across the space between them as though they left a bad taste in his mouth.  
  
“Stop staring at me.”  
  
“Sorry.” Blaine at least has the good grace to look ashamed and Kurt can’t help feeling a little satisfied at that: Blaine utterly broke him before, and Kurt has to be cold and indifferent now because he can’t let him do it again. “I didn’t realize I was.”  
  
Kurt feels a little piece of himself begin to crumble right there, just a little but enough to worry him; if he moves the wrong brick the whole wall will collapse, and this wall took him so long to build up in the first place. Blaine saved him once a long time ago and Kurt wonders if that’s why it hurts so much now; it feels like Blaine saved him just so that he could be the one to destroy him again.  
  
“You look wonderful,” Blaine says.  
  
Kurt knows he doesn’t and even if he did, Blaine is not allowed to say those things to him anymore. He doesn’t answer – what is there to say that he hasn’t said a thousand times, a lifetime ago?  
  
 _I hate you, I love you, please just go away, please don’t ever leave me._  
  
“It’s so good to see you,” Blaine says.  
  
 _You have absolutely no idea._  
  
But Kurt doesn’t say it out loud. There is a silence and it isn’t golden. It’s dark gray, the color of night when the curtains are closed and the lights are out, the kind of gray that creeps upon you, creeps over you, represses and possesses. Since the day Blaine left Kurt has slept with the light on.  
  
“Did you come here for a reason?” Kurt applauds himself, silently; he deserves a gaudy plastic trophy for exercising this amount of self-control. He doesn’t have a single nerve ending that isn’t stretching to touch, he aches for the feel of Blaine’s skin against his and he stands tense, willing his body to follow the feeble commands of his mind. His question catches Blaine off guard, and he blushes. Kurt hates himself for how adorable he thinks that is.  
  
“I, er…it’s just…I’ll go.”  
  
Kurt sighs. He is so tired of all of this. Tired of being Blaine’s plaything, because right now that’s how he feels. He’s been cast aside for weeks, _months_ on end without so much as a text message. Now Blaine is here without warning like he’s just been out for a fucking _stroll_ – the whole thing is making Kurt hurt in new and different ways and it’s exhausting. He is tired of being alone; tired of missing Blaine when he’s awake and tired of his every dream being about what they were and what they could have been. Kurt has been in pieces for all this time and he’s spent all this time thinking that Blaine must be hurting too but he looks at Blaine now and it seems so obvious that he walked away without a scratch. Maybe that’s right, because that’s just Blaine, always so well put together, going about his life with Kurt’s heart shoved carelessly in his pocket alongside a flyer for an open mic night and half a packet of gum. Kurt just can’t do this now.  
  
But Blaine doesn’t go. Of course he doesn’t. Instead he rolls forward onto his tiptoes and back, and he smiles that smile and his voice is so full of warmth when he says things like " _I saw this and I thought of you"_ and " _I went to this place and I needed you to see it so badly, Kurt_ " and " _There was this one time, this one night and oh Kurt, you would have loved it."_  
  
Kurt has been holding tight to the memory of lips on lips, fingertips touching hips, tangled limbs and tangled bedsheets and whispers of ever afte. As Blaine speaks he feels his grip on himself begin to slide. He listens to Blaine telling him about all that he has missed and he feels his stomach heave; there is a very real threat that he might be sick.  Blaine saying all this... it’s too little too late and at the same time it is altogether too much. He can’t let Blaine in again, for the sake of his sanity he can’t however much he might want to, and he _does_ want to, so much that he can barely see straight. Two months ago, hell, one month ago it might have been different but he’s tried so hard to get to where he is now and the only way he can make that work, the only way he can make _anything_ work is to hide his feelings behind a perfect sense of style and a sharp wit. To not let anybody close enough to hurt him, not even Blaine.  
  
Especially not Blaine.  
  
: :  
  
"Why are you here?" Kurt asks again, desperately this time, and Blaine is confused because hasn’t he already answered that, has he not made it clear why he’s here? Even though, of course, he hadn’t known himself until he started talking. But Kurt is looking at him, his eyes a mixture of panic and steely determination and Blaine shrugs.  
  
"I've come to see you," he says simply, reaching for his own keys because for some reason he never thought to return them to Kurt (and Kurt hasn’t exactly been in touch to ask). Blaine unlocks the door and steps into the apartment building, stopping when he realizes Kurt hasn't followed him and looking back over his shoulder to where Kurt stands, looking for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights.

“"Well?” Blaine says. “Aren't you coming in?" He tries to act like he knows what he’s doing. Truth is he hasn’t got a clue.  
  
Kurt seems to have composed himself by the time he’s banged the door to his apartment closed behind them, and his fumbling nervousness that Blaine had been finding rather endearing has been replaced by anger.  
  
"Are you totally out of your mind?" he hisses. "Wait," – he holds up a hand – "don't answer that. You're not supposed to be here. We broke up. Breaking up, as you seem to be unaware, generally means you not being here. It means you not turning up after four months and letting yourself into my apartment like you still have the right. _You do not have the right_ , Blaine."  
  
Blaine shrugs, offers Kurt a smile that he doesn’t return. "I wanted to see you?"  
  
"What do you think this is going to achieve?”  
  
"I don’t know.” Blaine really doesn't know anything other than he can’t live without this boy. New York is a massive city and surely the fact that he’s wound up here has to mean something.  
  
Kurt sighs heavily and then, because he has no idea what else to do, with a shake of his head says, "Well, suppose you're here now."  
  
"Are you offering to cook me dinner?" And it's all fucking bravado, all of it. Blaine raises an eyebrow and offers a smile that is ever so slightly suggestive. This time there is no mistaking Kurt’s flush; it’s so familiar to Blaine, the way Kurt’s never been able to disguise his displeasure, that it makes his heart clench.  
  
"No, I certainly am not...."  
  
"Because I'm ravenous."  
  
And it’s Blaine and Kurt has never been able to refuse him.  
  
"You'd better take your jacket off then."  
  
After slipping out of his coat and placing it into Kurt's outstretched hand, Blaine follows him down the hall to the kitchen, which is spotlessly clean, its work surfaces glimmering.  
  
"I'd offer you a beer," Kurt says, peering into the fridge. "But I, um... I don't seem to have any." He gives Blaine a pointed look. "Wasn't expecting guests."  
  
Blaine shrugs, trying to ignore the lump in his throat – this is Kurt and Blaine shouldn’t _even_ be his guest – but this hurts, so much. He wonders what would happen if he turned now and just ran.

 _Don’t ever look back._ .

Except, _Kurt_.  
  
"Doesn't matter." He reaches for a bottle of red off the wine rack, a bottle that he’d bought a few months ago – they were supposed to save it for a special occasion. "We can drink this." He meets Kurt’s eye. "Unless you were still saving it?"  
  
Kurt shakes his head. "You know where the glasses are.”  
  
"Can I use the bathroom?"  
  
By the time he's cleaned up and found the wine glasses, Kurt has made a start on dinner and Blaine stops at the kitchen door, a slow smile spreading across his face as he watches him, standing with his back to the door and stirring something on the stove. He’s pushed his sleeves up to his elbows revealing toned forearms (Blaine’s always been a member of the _Kurt Hummel’s Arms Fanclub_ ) and he stands barefoot, stirring as his foot taps in time to the radio. It’s so familiar that Blaine can almost pretend the last few months never happened and it feels so so good to just be here with Kurt, like this.  
  
Like always.  
  
He steps into the kitchen placing the glasses on the worktop and clears his throat gently.  
  
Kurt turns to face him. "You took your time. Had a good look around, did you?"  
  
Blaine smiles, deciding the best course of action is probably to ignore the fact that Kurt obviously doesn't want him there right then, is cooking because he has no choice and is behaving like he doesn't really trust Blaine, a fact that hurts. A lot. He picks up the wine. "Shall I pour?"  
  
: :  
  
Blaine smiles, placing his spoon on his empty plate and leaning back in his chair. "Well, if your culinary skills are indicative of everything else you have to offer then London will be lucky to have you," he says warmly. "That was delicious, as always."  
  
Kurt seems to tense at that and Blaine kicks himself, literally, heel making contact with his shin beneath the table for mentioning the L word. Still, he knows Kurt must be leaving any day now and he has wants him to know that it’s ok, that he’s sorry, that he’ll wait if Kurt still wants him, will go with him, even, if Kurt just says the word. He can’t lose him again. He can’t. Kurt refuses to meet his eyes and takes another sip of wine.  
  
He’s completely different once the wine had taken effect and he’s relaxed a little. He’s like the Kurt Blaine knows so well, only improved tenfold; Blaine had forced himself not to think about just how much he loves Kurt’s company, and now that he’s being forced to remember it all seems so petty, the fact that they’re even in this situation. They’ve chatted easily enough throughout the meal, although they’re both painfully aware that this is the first time they’ve really been alone together since they split. Kurt has steered the conversation away from anything even remotely personal, letting Blaine know in his quiet way that his private life is not up for discussion, which is fine – Blaine doesn’t particularly want to discuss it either, not sure he can bear to hear just how much things have changed, to know whether there is somebody else already or whether Kurt just stopped caring.  
  
So, conversation has stayed on neutral grounds and now, as Blaine watches him stand to clear the plates, he realizes this has been the most enjoyable evening he has spent in a long time.  
  
In 15 weeks.  
  
"Leave it," he says, watching as Kurt begins to tidy the kitchen. "It can wait."  
  
Kurt turns around, looking first at Blaine and then back to the pile of dishes. "I really should..."  
  
"It can wait," he says again, picking up on the way Kurt stiffens slightly, how his hands curl lightly into fists as he surveys the mess, how his expression shows some kind of inner battle. "Kurt...?"  
  
"Best to get it out of the way," he says softly.  
  
"It's only the dishes, Kurt," Blaine says just as softly, wondering why all of a sudden he is as nervous as he had been when he arrived. "Listen, leave it, come and sit down.”  
  
Kurt pauses, inhales deeply and with a last almost longing look around the kitchen follows Blaine back through to the living room, moving with him to the sofa. Blaine slips off his shoes and sits down, crossing one leg over the other and sipping from his glass as though he belongs there.  
  
The conversation is slightly more stilted when not punctuated by pauses for mouthfuls of food, but somehow they manage. Then when Kurt reaches forwards to top up his glass his fingers brush against Blaine's hand and all of a sudden Blaine is acutely aware of everything he has been fighting to ignore. Of Kurt’s slender fingers; of his eyes that now have something in them other than barely suppressed nerves and irritation; of his lips as they pinch in his concentration on pouring the wine; of the expanse of skin that peeps from the vee of his shirt and begs to be touched.  
  
Blaine’s fingers tighten around his glass and he exhales slowly, giving himself a silent lecture; telling himself Kurt is out of bounds, telling himself to get a grip, _he is not interested_. Kurt has been so distant since he arrived, it’s more than abundantly clear that that particular ship has sailed.

“I’m not going to London.” Kurt sits back and speaks so quietly that Blaine has to strain his ears to hear. “I’m... not going. I said no. I... I couldn’t, Blaine, I just– it didn’t matter anymore; it never mattered to start with. And I know we broke up, I know that, but I couldn’t be that far away from you. Even if I never saw you again, I had to be here. In case.”  
  
Feeling his hands begin to tremble Blaine places his glass on the floor. He notes that Kurt hasn't refilled his own, and that he is watching him right back, the look on his face unreadable. Kurt edges closer to him on the sofa, a soft smile transforming his features – suddenly it’s Blaine who’s nervous – and as Kurt slowly lowers his head towards his, he is aware of how insane this is; that they’ve both had too much wine; that Kurt isn’t going to London (and why hadn’t he told him that _before_?); and that really, this is probably something they should talk about; but above all, that the only thing he wants is for Kurt Hummel to kiss him. Kurt smiles with just the smallest curving of lips and then he does. Lightly at first, the brush of his lips so soft Blaine isn’t sure whether he imagined it, then when Blaine doesn't pull away, increasingly forcefully, pulling away to press tiny kisses on his cheeks, his eyes, his nose before moving back to his lips.  
  
Kurt has one hand on the back of Blaine’s head and the other rests on his leg as though he’s unsure what to do with it. His teeth gently nibble on Blaine's lower lip until he has no choice but to give in and match him kiss for kiss, revelling in the feel of Kurt's lips on his own, forcing his tongue inside Kurt's mouth, his tongue sliding warm against Kurt's as he pulls him closer.  
  
He isn’t sure whether it’s the wine or the feeling of being kissed by _Kurt_ that is making him feel so lightheaded (more than likely, it’s a combination of both), and as the kiss intensifies his hands go instinctively to Kurt's belt. He fumbles for a second with the buckle, his mouth never leaving Kurt's, and then instead runs his hands up Kurt's taut body, feels the muscles of his chest tightening under his touch, brushes his thumbs over Kurt’s nipples as he moves his mouth down Blaine’s body. Kurt  covers his neck and shoulders with kisses as he removes Blaine’s shirt, pushing him back against the cushions, and then his mouth finds Blaine’s again, breaking free only to allow Blaine to remove his shirt in return.

“I’ve missed you,” he breathes, voice catching at the look in Kurt’s eyes as he looks down at him – there’s something there that Blaine had been afraid he’d never see again. “Kurt.”  
  
This is what it is about, Blaine thinks as he presses his fingers into Kurt's bare back, nibbling on his lip. This is what it's like to be kissed. This is what I have been missing out on, and of course the person to remind me should be him. Kurt moves again to look downwards at Blaine, almost in awe as he pulls him close so Blaine's chest is pressed against his, skin against skin.  
  
"Bedroom." Blaine barely manages to breathe the word as Kurt relieves him of his remaining clothes, simultaneously sliding out of his jeans as he kisses him again. "Not here."  
  
It’s as though the sound of Blaine's voice has burst his bubble and sent him crashing back down to earth, and Kurt pulls back quickly.  
  
"It's ok," Blaine whispers, reaching up and stroking his cheek "Kurt. It's all ok."  
  
Kurt nods and then he stands, taking Blaine by the hand and leading him down the hall, pushing open the door and pulling him gently to the bed.  
  
Blaine watches and Kurt swallows, hard, not quite able to believe that this is happening, that he’s here. After months of telling himself otherwise he knows this is all he wants, ever.  
  
"You're incredible," Kurt breathes and Blaine smiles, shuddering a little as Kurt runs his hands up his legs, over his hips, across his stomach. Blaine finds his eyes locking on Kurt’s as he lifts his hips, silently pleading with Kurt to touch him.

Kurt hesitates for a split second and then, leaning in to kiss him again, he lightly moves his fingers over to grip him gently, slowly moving his mouth downwards, leaving a trail of hot delicious kisses until he’s there, his tongue flicking out against the tip of Blaine's cock, tasting him. He takes Blaine fully into his mouth, licking and sucking, flattening his tongue against the heavy weight of Blaine’s cock and humming, knowing the vibration will make Blaine’s fingers tangle in the sheets and in Kurt’s hair as he fights to not buck up into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt wouldn’t mind if he did; he can take it, likes that knowledge that Blaine is falling apart because of him. He’s almost dizzy with his own arousal, not stopping until Blaine has come in his mouth with a cry of pleasure and a long, shuddering spasm.  
  
Kurt moves up, folding Blaine in his arms even as he trembles, pressing his lips against his forehead then kissing him again. Kurt smiles into his mouth as he feels Blaine’s hand slide between them and fasten around him, touching him lightly at first and then more fervently. He knows it won’t take long and he tries to hold back but this is Blaine and Kurt has wanted this for so long. He can feel himself falling, crying out Blaine’s name as he reaches out and pulls Blaine snug to him.  
  
 _Kiss_ _|kis|_ _: verb 1 [I or T] to touch with your lips, especially as a greeting, or to press your mouth onto another person's mouth in a sexual way: Kisses. Intimate, beautiful, an expression of intense emotions..._

  
: :  
  
Kurt's not entirely sure how it happened, and even less sure why. All he knows as light filters through the bedroom window and alerts him to the fact that he forgot to close the curtains, is that somehow it did. He supposes that really it was inevitable; when your first love, the one person you think about every single day without fail, your _only_ love turns up on your doorstep wearing the jeans you always loved and punching you in the stomach with his smile, there are really only two outcomes. The one that involved Kurt shaking his head in answer to Blaine’s "Are you offering to cook me dinner?" was never really an option and so here he is.  
  
Here they are.  
  
Blaine had looked just the same as he had three months ago when Kurt had screamed and Blaine had shouted and they’d both cried themselves hoarse. He was a little thinner perhaps and his eyes had lost a little of their sparkle but otherwise he hadn't changed, he looked so good, and Kurt had distinctly felt his throat tighten at the sight. He’d listened to Blaine talk, his voice like a balm on a wound nowhere _near_ healing, and when Blaine had unlocked Kurt’s own front door there hadn’t been much he could do but close the door behind him and watch as Blaine moved slowly down his hallway, asking himself what on earth he was supposed to do with all this.

Now, as he blearily pushes the duvet away, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and curling his toes as his feet come into contact with the cold floorboards, he still has no clue. As he glances over at the lump beneath the duvet, his curly brown hair dark on white pillows, he doesn’t really know which rush of emotion is stronger; the love or the fear.  
  
Kurt wasn't supposed to see him again and wasn't prepared to either, especially not like this. Blaine wasn't supposed to turn up uninvited and unexpected, beautiful and lost on his doorstep, smiling at Kurt, whipping the proverbial rug from beneath him and leaving him floundering when his grasp on control was already so precarious. Yet he was here, is here, and in some ways it’s like he’s never been away. In this moment Kurt wishes more than anything that he'd sent him back to where he came from because the familiarity of Blaine’s dream-induced murmurs in the night terrified him, and now the sight of him asleep beneath their sheets terrifies him. He has to shake himself back to reality and force himself to just turn and head for the bathroom.  
  
Blaine had told him he needed to see him. Blaine had told him that he hadn’t meant to turn up like that but he had been going insane trying to finish a paper – he hadn’t been able to concentrate for days, really, and he had just needed to get out. That much Kurt understood. What he was struggling to comprehend was how Blaine had ended up here, how he had chosen the origin of all his problems as his place of refuge.  
  
"Why are you here?” he'd asked, and Blaine had shrugged his shoulder and said he just wanted to see Kurt. Like it was as simple as that, like there weren’t four months’ worth of hell between them, like it made sense. The thing that scares Kurt the most was that even after all this time, after everything, it did.  
  
So Kurt had made dinner, Blaine had poured them both wine, and somehow _somehow_ they’d ended up in Kurt’s bed. Eventually Blaine had fallen asleep with his arm thrown over Kurt’s chest.  
  
Kurt wonders as he washes his hands, catching sight of his reflection in the mirror and wondering how he doesn’t look nearly as old as he feels, whether he shouldn’t have sent Blaine packing right after dinner. Except they’d been a little bit tipsy (he kept filling up their glasses) and Blaine had said all of those things out on the street and he was _there_. After so long of Kurt wishing he’d just turn up like that, finally he had. Kurt had kept seeing little flashes behind the cool confident exterior, flashes that made him realize that maybe Blaine was hurting too: the way he’d rocked forward onto his toes or tugged the skin of his lower lip into his mouth, little tells that could easily be missed if you didn’t know what you were looking for. This is Blaine, though, and Kurt doesn’t even have to look. Without trying, he’d recognized the almost imperceptible tremor to his voice and the look in his eye, gone before it had even really taken hold, that meant Blaine was desperately unsure. Somehow Kurt had been unable to think of anything other than kissing Blaine from the second he had appeared behind him like some kind of secret agent or stalker or something. So yes, he wonders now whether he _should_ have sent Blaine packing but he hadn’t, of course he hadn’t.  
  
He had wondered last night too, but he hadn't known how to do so in the slightest.  
  
Like now. Right now he wants to shower then sit in the lounge and drink orange juice and read the Times online, pretending Blaine’s not naked and asleep in the bed they bought together until he has no choice but to stop pretending. Despite this, somehow his feet are taking him back in the direction of the bedroom – _is this what an out of body experience feels like_? He’s not sure he likes it, really. He perches on the edge of the bed watching Blaine sleep, wondering when _exactly_ he became a creep because it’s fine to watch someone sleep when they’re you’re boyfriend but Blaine isn’t, so there’s no way around it, Kurt’s being weird. He’s unable to prevent himself from reaching across and pulling gently at a curl, twirling it gently ‘round his finger, before letting it fall. Blaine smiles a little in his sleep, murmurs softly, and the memories that come flooding back are like bullets to Kurt’s chest.  
  
Blaine.  
  
Two weeks ago Kurt had gone out for dinner to the new Thai restaurant that had opened downtown with another blind date – for some reason he had allowed his “friends” to set him up, not for the first time. He had never really been into the whole idea of a blind date, but somehow it was easier not to make a fuss. After all, it had been four months and he supposed he couldn’t pine forever. This guy, the one Kurt had treated to delicious green curry, had been on-paper-perfect: intelligent, humorous, attractive, well-dressed. He ticked all the boxes, was the type of person who would have fit into his life perfectly, and he found himself enjoying the company – had even arranged another date – yet something had been missing and he’d found himself saddened by it. Not by the fact that something hadn't “clicked” but by the sharp reminder that it was impossible to choose who you loved.  
  
The reminder comes again now as he watches Blaine sleep, his hair untidy and free, his mouth slightly open; you can’t choose who you love, and Kurt loves Blaine. Still.  
  
He remembers how conversation had flowed the night before, how Blaine had sipped his wine with his legs curled effortlessly beneath him and how they had talked for hours. They had avoided the all too painful topic of “their past” and Kurt had been captivated as Blaine told him about how hard his final papers were turning out to be; about Jack’s misguided crush on Santana; about the bizarre phone call he’d had with Cooper just last week. The initial awkwardness had quickly been pushed aside and he wonders as he sits on the bed what will happen, because he is unsure now that he’s found Blaine again whether or not he could let this boy go, regardless of whether he wanted to.  
  
"G'morning." Blaine looks at him through half-open eyes and Kurt remembers how he was never a morning person.  
  
“Morning.” Kurt smiles at him softly, watching as Blaine shifts himself up so he’s sitting propped against the pillows, smiling back at him.  
  
“Isn’t this strange?” Blaine looks around the room slowly and gives a low laugh. “I can’t believe this is real.”  
  
“I can’t believe you’re real,” Kurt replies, touching the tips of his fingers to Blaine’s cheeks as though to convince himself that he isn’t a mirage, dreamt up by his lonely subconscious. “It’s like a dream.”  
  
And it is a dream that he’s had for a long time, a dream that has been both blissful and torturous much in the same way actually having Blaine within arm’s reach is proving to be.  
  
“A dream,” Blaine replies, studying Kurt’s face carefully, “or a nightmare?”  
  
Kurt isn’t sure how to answer and so he doesn’t, opts instead for a swift change of subject: “Now that you’re back in my bed, how long are you planning to stay?” He raises an eyebrow hoping he’s managing to strike the right balance of flirtatious and quizzical, not making it too obvious that his stomach is churning.  
  
Blaine looks at him nervously. “I guess that depends on how long I’m welcome?”  
  
It’s half-question, half-statement and it crosses Kurt’s mind that it’s unfair of Blaine to put that on him. Unfair of him to turn up out of nowhere after months and expect Kurt to make the decision as to whether he stays or goes. It crosses his mind that if he were to make the _right_ decision he would probably tell Blaine that he had to go, that it has been "nice" to see him but that it is best, for both of them, that they move on.  
  
“I don’t want you to go.”  
  
The words have left his mouth before he’s even registered that he’s thinking them. They hover heavily in the air between them for a long moment before Blaine smiles at him and nods his head. Kurt wonders what on earth he is getting himself into – are some boxes best left closed, and is inviting Blaine back into his life just going to result in his heart breaking all over again? But now it’s too late because his words, once said, are impossible to grab back; Blaine is staying for now and for now Kurt wants him to stay. He just wishes he wasn’t so damn scared, scared because he knows at some point they're going to have to broach the topic that they managed to successfully tiptoe around all last night. At some point their past will creep into conversation and Blaine will confront Kurt’s decision to go to London without talking to him first and Kurt will question how Blaine could end their relationship at the time he did. The pain and the blame they have kept hidden away will make itself known in tears and recriminations and no amount of "sorry" will ever put it right.  
  
Blaine smiles at him again. “You’re sure?” he asks. “That it’s ok, my being here?”  
  
In that instant Kurt decides that they have to just bite that bullet, that they need to talk about it and deal with it, they need to shout if they need to shout and cry if they need to cry. How can they expect to be here, together, with their horrible history lurking around them? He swallows.  
  
“Blaine.” He swallows again, his throat is as dry as a desert, and he glances toward the bedstead, eyes searching for water. “About… before. London. The fights.”  
  
The warmth in Blaine’s eyes dims a little at his words and he tenses, taking a sharp intake of breath before shaking his head, slipping out of the bed and grabbing his jeans from where they lay folded on a chair. He’s avoiding Kurt’s gaze as he dresses, head down.  
  
“I’ll go make coffee, shall I?” His voice is firm yet shaky, leaves no room for negotiations as he turns. He still hasn’t met Kurt’s eye when he leaves the room.

Kurt finds him in the kitchen, standing with his palms flat against the work surface and staring straight ahead as though battling to stay in control. He’s so relieved to see Blaine standing there, so damn relieved that he hasn’t grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, that he can’t help but smile. Blaine flinches when Kurt rests a hand on his shoulder and the smile as he turns to face him is forced, the pain in his eyes as raw as it has ever been. It all but breaks Kurt’s heart. He wonders whether he should just give in, let Blaine push it to one side and pretend like it never happened, but he can’t; he’s already learnt the hard way what can happen if he doesn’t tell Blaine what’s on his mind.  
  
He tries again. “Why did you come here?”  
  
“For you.” Blaine answers as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, not even waiting a beat and sounding so freaking earnest that Kurt wants to hold him and never let go.  
  
“But why?” He doesn’t understand, wonders if he is missing something blindingly obvious.  
  
“I…” Blaine trails off and Kurt realizes that Blaine has much of a clue as he does, that really it was a case of any port in a storm – he needed to get away, and despite everything there was still a string that bound them intrinsically together. He’d found himself at Kurt’s doorstep but had no idea what came next.  
  
Blaine runs a hand over his face, exhaling heavily. “How did you feel,” he asks, “when you turned around and saw me?”  
  
Kurt isn’t sure how to answer, has no idea how to put into words what he can barely comprehend for himself, so he settles for the one word that buzzes around his head like an agitated fly: “Sick.”  
  
Blaine nods as though it makes sense. “And now?”  
  
Kurt smiles a little, the corners of skin around his eyes crinkling. “Still sick.”  
  
Blaine runs his fingers through his hair, pausing to consider his words before speaking again. “I suppose that makes sense, and I suppose I should have called or something first. It was rash of me; I acted first, thought later.”  
  
“Like always,” Kurt says wryly.  
  
“Exactly like always,” Blaine agrees with a laugh, their eyes meeting and holding for a second.  
  
“That doesn’t mean I’m not pleased to see you,” Kurt says quickly, realizing that to say Blaine’s appearance made him nauseous might not have sounded all that welcoming.  
  
“Look, Blaine...” He curls his long fingers into a fist, unfurling them slowly as he nervously tries to construct a sentence in his head. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I need you to know I’m sorry.”  
  
He stops. How do you put it into words? Somehow the word just doesn’t seem strong enough because really, he thinks as he studies the face looking up at him, waiting, how does he even begin to say sorry for putting his dreams before Blaine, for the fact that the two things weren’t tied together, for being stupid enough to think Blaine would just follow where he led, even if it was the other side of the world? For being blind enough to not see that maybe Blaine had dreams of his own? Sorry for screwing everything up so very badly?  
  
For a long time Kurt was angry with Blaine – he’d cast Kurt aside, written him out of his life without even really hearing Kurt out, without giving him a _chance_ – but he’s had time _so much time_ to think things over. He knows that he was being incredibly selfish and that his vision had been obstructed by opportunity, that he didn’t deserve someone as incredible as Blaine. Blaine had done the only thing he could do.

If Kurt’s honest, he knows that if the situation had been reversed his decisions would have mirrored Blaine’s.  
  
Blaine is guilty of nothing and what Kurt is guilty of he’s afraid he’ll never really be able to make amends for. How do you begin to say sorry for that, and then on the other side of the coin how do you begin to forgive?  
  
Blaine nods his head, his brown eyes glistening with tears that cut Kurt to the quick. Hasn’t he made the boy cry enough already?  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Suddenly as Blaine reaches out and gently traces the line of his jaw with his fingers, Kurt realizes that sometimes all you have to say is "sorry;” that two-syllable word can say everything that you could spend your lifetime trying to convey. It’s all it takes and more than enough. He is blown away by Blaine’s capacity to forgive, knows in that very instant that he’s forgiven.  
  
“I’m sorry too.”  
  
And while Kurt is tempted to chastise him, to cast his apology to one side and tell him it isn’t necessary, he doesn’t, he just smiles and accepts. He knows that things aren’t perfect and he knows that if they’re going to stand a chance at all, at anything, then they, _he_ , will have to be patient. There is a lot that still needs saying, and it will take a lot of time for anything new to flourish from the ashes he thought they’d left behind. Now though, for the first time in as long as he can remember there’s hope. Blaine’s hand slips into his as he suggests a walk in the park, and the warmth curling around his fingers making it feel like Blaine had never away makes him believe in second chances.  
  
: :  
  
"It’s going to be ok, you know." Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand in his and gives him a small sideways smile, steers him gently in through the park gates. Blaine feels his chest tighten a little just at that because he knows, _he knows_ that Kurt is right. It is, now it is, and God, if that isn’t the best feeling in the world. He squeezes back but Kurt continues, taking his silence for uncertainty.  
  
"I thought I’d lost you, I really did, and it killed me Blaine."

His eyes shine wide with tears that make Blaine’s heart clench and he sounds desperate – his voice is tight in the way Blaine knows means he is fighting for control. "I hated every single second. But I think it doesn’t matter, not now. What’s a couple of months out of the _rest of our lives?_

“Because that’s what this is, Blaine, for me," he stops and pauses, takes a deep breath. Blaine squeezes his hand a little tighter, swallows around the lump in his own throat. “Rachel said something to me about ours being a Hallmark relationship and I was so pissed at her at the time but she’s right, you know. I mean, we’ve _never_ fought like that before, never come up against anything that we haven’t been able to tackle together head on, and this last couple of months hasn’t been because we don’t love each other, it’s just been that we got a little caught up in the drama and we didn’t know how to be like that with each other. We got carried away but we’ve been without each other now, or at least I’ve felt what it’s like without you without you, how it felt like the sun was never going to fucking _shine_ again... I know we’ll fight again but I also know that we’ll make it through; it won’t break us, _it can’t fucking break us, Blaine,_ because I’ve lived the alternative and it was shit. If I know anything it’s that I want you to always be here for me to fight with."  
  
Blaine would laugh at that normally because Kurt wants him to be there to _fight with_ , always?  
  
As great romantic speeches go it’s probably not one of the best. He can’t help but smile a little even though Kurt is so freaking earnest: he’s stopped walking and has turned to face Blaine, is gripping both of Blaine’s hands in his so tightly, and his cheeks are a little rosy. He’s looking at Blaine, at him and into him, and Blaine can feel his heart thundering against his ribcage so hard that it hurts. All he can do is just nod because this,it’s nothing if not a little crazy.  
  
It’s all happened so fast; one minute he was standing watching Kurt fumble for his keys and trying to kid himself he didn’t even care, the next they were tugging at each others’ clothes. It had been _fifteen weeks_ and they’d both had a lot to drink, so what if it had all been a terrible mistake? Except touching Kurt, tasting him, waking up to his smile and walking like this, hand in hand through the park, none of it feels like a mistake. It feels like fixing one, like righting a wrong, like realigning the whole fucking _universe_. That petrifies him, how all it takes is just _Kurt_ and suddenly everything makes sense again – at the same time it feels different now, better. Like things make more sense with Kurt around, because Blaine _wants_ him to be around; because Blaine knows now that he can survive without Kurt, he just chooses not to.

He wonders what happens now, as they stop and buy coffee from a cart and Kurt digs in his pocket for change to buy a cinnamon roll (they’re Blaine’s favorite). It’s warm out but it still feels nice to wrap his fingers round the paper coffee cup, comforting although Blaine’s not exactly sure why he feels he can caffeinate his way out of his fear of the unknown.

All of this is familiar and perfect and right and so fucking terrifying in the way only negotiating new territory with an old love can be: it’s easy to be with Kurt, to walk so close that their shoulders brush as they sip from their drinks; to talk; to not talk; to point out the cute kid in the stroller or the puppy straining at its leash or the girl in the ridiculous stilettos; to stop them both and cup Kurt’s jaw to press a fleeting kiss to his coffee flavored lips. It’s all so easy but Blaine needs to know what comes next. Can he just go home with Kurt? Can he even call it _home_ after all this time? Can they fall back into their old lives as though nothing ever changed, as though they hadn’t broken each other into thousands of pieces... or do they need to really start over, take it slower even than the first time around? Does Blaine need to keep sleeping on Jack’s sofa and take Kurt out on dates where they hold hands and share chaste kisses, pretending to relearn what they already know by heart?

He wants it to be that easy, of course he does, but that’s nothing new to Blaine. He’s aware of his own faults, knows he has a tendency to bury his head in the sand. The last few months have been so horrible, for the most part at least, that he wants to just put it all behind him and stride into his future with Kurt’s hand held tightly in his.

It’s a lack of communication that caused their problems in the first place, though; he knows that probably means they should talk.

Really talk.

He just wishes he knew where to start: the spoken word has never been his forte.

He thinks about singing Katy Perry to a cute boy he met on the stairs; about "I really want to kiss you" disguised as Hey Monday; about “Somewhere Only We Know” instead of goodbye; about Whitney Houston when he was so mad at Kurt he couldn’t think straight; even about Gotye to try and get through to his brother; and about all the times he’s used somebody else’s songs to say the things he’s needed to say. Now when he knows he needs words of his own, he has none.

Maybe he could break into song now, except he doesn’t have the Warblers or the New Directions behind him, nor does he have the band to back him up in the school courtyard Does he need them?

He feels like he needs _some_ backup.

What would he sing, anyway? Jackson 5, maybe, so Kurt knows he wants him back even though he thinks he’s made that pretty clear, or maybe a bit of Mariah because they _do_ belong together. He needs a song that says _"_ I’m sorry" as well as one that says "I forgive you" and all he really can think to say is "please, let’s not ever be that stupid again."

"You’re thinking about serenading me aren’t you?" Kurt says, quirking a perfect eyebrow with the ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

Blaine laughs, because seriously, how can Kurt know him that well? How can Blaine have ever thought that breaking up with someone who knows him that well was anywhere close to being a good idea?

"I’m always thinking of serenading someone." Blaine grins – it’s easy to laugh at himself when Kurt’s eyes are so full of love. "You know me: forever a fan of inappropriate public song."

"You can’t do that to me again." Kurt shakes his head. “Not unless it’s at our wedding. I don’t think my fragile heart could take it." He presses a gloved hand to his chest dramatically and Blaine raises the other hand to his lips, kisses each knuckle gently.

 _"Little darling,”_ Blaine sings softly, barely more than a whisper, _“it's been a long cold lonely winter._ "

"I mean it, Blaine."

He probably doesn’t, Blaine reasons. Kurt would probably let him stand there and sing to him right here in the park but he stops anyway, eyes twinkling as he takes a sip of his coffee.

"Can we do it?" he asks, licking a drop of coffee from the corner of his mouth and not missing the way Kurt’s eyes follow his tongue. "After all this time, after all we said, after everything. Do you think we can do it?"

It’s Kurt that ends up singing, which is one for the books. Blaine feels his heart flutter against his ribcage.

 _"I know you haven't made your mind up yet,”_ he sings, his voice as clear and beautiful as ever in Blaine’s ear. _“–but I would never do you wrong. I've known it from the moment that we met; no doubt in my mind where you belong."_

Kurt steps closer, pressing his body to Blaine’s so they’re chest to chest and resting a hand on his hip. It’s not dramatic, there’s no boys in blazers or strategically placed musicians, no store dummies or furniture to jump on. There’s nothing but Kurt beside him, in front of him, around him – and his voice, Blaine’s favorite sound.

"You really think we can do it?" Blaine asks again when Kurt stops singing and turns his head a little, the press of his nose cold at Blaine’s temple.

He probably sounds like a broken record but he feels like he’s falling a little bit, like yesterday he was crumbling under the weight of deadlines he couldn’t make matter, to say nothing of the ever-present knowledge that somehow he had managed to fuck up his life spectacularly, and this morning he’d awoken in Kurt’s bed, _their bed_. Now Kurt’s singing him promises of forever; it’s all happened so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t have whiplash.

Kurt shrugs his shoulders, his hands squeezing a little where they still rest on Blaine’s hips.

"My Dad always says you can’t appreciate the good unless you’ve known the bad. Maybe this was our bad?"

"Your dad is a very wise man."

"Yes."

"So what now, then?" Blaine wonders if he should take charge, be a little more decisive but he still feels on edge, like he’s expecting to wake at any moment and find this has all been a dream. If he moves too fast then it could all unravel around him as quickly as it had before and he doesn’t think he can do that again. He doesn’t want to seem needy, even though God, he really _is_ ; he has Kurt here, in his grasp, forgiving him and being forgiven and it feels so good, it feels so much like how it is supposed to be that he can’t risk screwing it up again.

Kurt smiles, slow and warm and it amazes Blaine, still, how much New York has changed him; how much he’s grown. He has a year in this city on Blaine and it shows. Kurt’s so much more here; he shines so much brighter, has so much more self belief and it takes Blaine’s breath away. There’s not a hint of doubt as he lets go of Blaine’s hips and takes him again by the hand, smile growing as he leans into steal a kiss, like it’s something they do, like they never stopped.

"Now," Kurt says, "we go home."

: :

It’s a couple of days later when Kurt calls his dad.

Blaine is asleep on the sofa in sweatpants and an old McKinley t-shirt. He showered earlier and hadn’t gelled his hair so it’s dried in loose curls that fall on his forehead. He looks so adorable that it makes Kurt’s chest tight. It’s an image that’s entirely different from this morning in bed, with Kurt on his back and Blaine straddling him, their fingers entwined and Blaine holding on so tightly his knuckles were white as he sank down slowly, so slowly, onto Kurt’s cock. His eyes had locked on Kurt’s and he sounded choked up as he spoke. "Kurt. _Kurt._ I love you so so much." A different image but no less perfect.

How close they’d come to throwing it all away. How stupid they’ve been.

It’s been a heady two days. They haven’t left the apartment, existing solely on takeout and sex and DVDs they’ve watched a thousand times before. It’s been almost too perfect, perhaps: lazy kisses and slow lovemaking and no mention at all of what has precipitated all of this. Kurt can’t help but think that really, it shouldn’t be this easy. He’s glad to have Blaine back, of course he is, doesn’t ever want to be apart from him for that long again. Surely there should be some leftover resentment somewhere, shouldn’t there? But no, that first morning after he came back Blaine had balked in the kitchen when Kurt had tried to apologize, then Kurt had made his impassioned speech in the park, and that’s been it.

They’ve clung to one another as though afraid to let go but they haven’t even hinted at the reasons why. It’s making him nervous, prickling beneath his skin.

Burt picks up on the second ring. His "Hey, buddy" is gentle and tentative like it has been since the breakup, afraid one wrong word could send his son spiralling into despair.

"Hey, Dad," he says softly.

"What’s up?"

"Does something need to be up?"

Burt chuckles and Kurt smiles in return; he loves the sound of his dad’s laugh, it makes him feel safe and grounded before it even registers that’s what he needs.

"No. But there has been, lately."

Fair point, Kurt thinks, there kind of has been. Who can blame him, though? Breaking up with your high school sweetheart would hit anyone hard, even more so when your family is in another state. He feels bad for worrying his dad, for all the times he’d call up already in tears. Sometimes he’d asked his dad to just put him on speaker while he watched the game; Kurt would lie on his bed and fall asleep to the sounds of the Buckeyes and his dad’s muttered cursing.

"Blaine’s here," he says now, steeling himself for the response.

"’Here’ as in...?"

"Asleep on the sofa."

"Alright."

Most of the time Kurt loves that his dad is a man of few words. It’s liberating to just be able to talk, to say what you have to say without some heated debate, without a long and convoluted conversation, with nothing but the odd "yes" or "no" or "ok" or pause giving Kurt chance to get his words out. Right now, though, Kurt kind of wishes that the spaces Burt is leaving for him to fill were smaller, that he was filling them himself with the questions Kurt is sure his dad Now that he’s called and said Blaine’s back he’s at a bit of a loss and this pause is leaning ever so slightly towards awkward. Which is not fine.

"He’s been asleep for over an hour. I should probably wake him." It’s more to fill the space than anything else: he’s pretty sure his dad doesn’t care really about Blaine’s sleeping habits.

"You’re back together then."

It’s not a question but it’s not a statement either. Kurt strains but can’t hear a trace of judgment in his dad’s tone, a fact which his is infinitely thankful for. Over the last few months he’s done a pretty good job of letting his dad know just how pissed he’s been at Blaine, a fact he regrets now – what if he’s shortsightedly made his dad hate the love of his life?

"Yes?" Kurt says. It comes out sounding like a question. "Is that okay?"

Burt sounds amused then. Kurt can practically see him running a hand across his face. "I don’t know, kiddo. Do _you_ think it’s okay?"

"I think it’s _amazing_ ," Kurt breathes, and he does. He really really does.

"And does Blaine think it’s okay?"

Kurt remembers a couple days ago: Blaine cooking dinner and dancing ‘round the kitchen, singing into his wooden spoon and shaking his hips, looking back over his shoulder and catching Kurt’s eye. In that heartbeat his entire face had lit up in a smile that could be seen from outer space.

"I think he thinks it’s okay."

"Then I guess it’s okay."

"You don’t hate him?"

"I don’t hate him any more than I hate you," Burt says. "...Which is to say, not at all. Listen, I’m a grown man and I know enough to know there’s always two sides to every story. From what I’ve pieced together over these past few weeks, you were a bit of a jerk to Blaine, although I can readily admit he may have deserved it somewhere along the way.  No fight is ever entirely one person’s doing. You’re my kid and I’m always on your side but I don’t think you’re without fault, Kurt. I’m just glad you kids have sorted it out. That’s what a relationship is, give and take, forgiving if not always forgetting, learning from your mistakes and loving each other no matter how pissed you are some days. If you can manage that you’ll be alright."

"I think we can manage," Kurt says quietly, "–because not managing? We can’t manage that."

"You’re talking in riddles, Kurt."

"I just, I love him."

"Well then," Burt says, and Kurt smiles down the phone because yes, exactly. Well then.

: :

"We should get a puppy," Blaine says before he’s even crossed the threshold, then drops his bag onto the floor. He proceeds to roll his eyes good-naturedly at Kurt’s pointed stare, picks it up again and walks the few short steps to place it beneath the desk in corner of the room.

"We should get a what now?"

"A puppy," Blaine says again. He’s leaning over the small formica counter that separates their kitchen from their living area, lips pursed in a _kiss me_ expression. Kurt caves. He tastes like whatever it is he’s been cooking and suddenly Blaine is ravenous, can’t wait for dinner.

Kurt shakes his head. "We should absolutely not get a puppy."

"You don’t think we’re ready for that kind of commitment?"

Blaine can’t deny that he feels a little disheartened. He’s been thinking about a puppy all damn day and fine, it might only be two weeks since he’d accidentally turned up outside and used a key (which he shouldn’t even have had anymore) to let himself back into Kurt’s apartment – and his life, really – but it already feels like a lifetime ago. Like he was never away, almost.

The pain of their brief yet endless separation is dull now, like the memory of the time he skinned his knee when he was six: he’d remembered the pain for weeks and had always been so careful afterwards to hold onto his dad’s hand when walking on walls taller than he was. Now, more than the pain he remembers the cuddles, the kisses, the way his dad had bought him a popsicle _"because popsicles are made of special things that stop you hurting Blaine, ok? Now stop those tears.”_ How his Mom had let him have a superhero band-aid from the first aid box when they got home. That’s how he feels now, like it had hurt when they’d been broken up, but it doesn’t matter anymore; it’s passed and Blaine is totally focused on the future.

Which includes a puppy.

"I’m just not sure you’re considering," Kurt says easily, eyes meeting Blaine’s for a beat, "that puppies grow into dogs."

"Which are equally awesome."

"And they shed."

"Lint rollers."

"And we’re both out most days. It wouldn’t be fair."

"Doggy daycare." Blaine grins, he’s worked it all out. "This is New York, Kurt, those places are _everywhere_. And we could run with it in the park at weekends."

Kurt looks horrified, like Blaine just said, "and then we could skin it and eat it raw for Thanksgiving Dinner.” Blaine has to swallow down a laugh.

"We could _not_."

"It’d be the best."

"If by _best_ you mean _worst_ , then yes. It would. I hate to point out the obvious, Blaine, but we don’t run on weekends. We have sex and watch trashy TV and go out for coffee and pretend like we have the money to keep ourselves in the sophisticated lifestyle we deserve."

"Alright, fair point, but we could start to run on weekends."

"I tried running once." Kurt waves his hand dismissively. "I spilled Isabelle’s coffee down the front of my shirt."

"Kuuuurt."

"Blaaaaine." Kurt moves round the end of the counter, slipping his arms around Blaine’s waist and tugging him closer. Blaine goes willingly, always willingly; the circle of Kurt’s arms is the best place to be in his opinion and besides, Kurt always says Blaine gives the best hugs. He’s at an advantage in his negotiations if he starts with a hug.

"We would be amazing puppy parents," he says, pressing kisses to Kurt’s jaw and grinning at the feel of Kurt’s fingers pressing a little harder into the small of his back in response.

"We could be amazing parents full stop," Kurt replies. Blaine feel his breath hitch, nips a little at Kurt’s jaw in reproach: he can’t just _say_ things like that to Blaine so casually and without warning. "One day."

"One day," Blaine agrees.

"There’s nothing to stop us, though..." Kurt breathes in his ear, fingers tugging Blaine’s shirt from his pants, cool fingers ghosting across Blaine’s warm skin. "– from getting in some practice."

"What kind of practice?" Blaine is a little confused.

"Baby-making practice."

"Um, you do realize–" Blaine pulls back a little to fix his boyfriend with his best arched eyebrow. "– that that’s not how it works, right?"

"Details, Blaine. Details. I cannot believe you are being this picky when I am so obviously trying to get you naked." He flushes a little the way he always does when talking about sex. Blaine thinks it’s adorable how Kurt is so imaginative in bed and yet still goes pink when it comes to the talking.

"This is the weirdest seduction of my life," Blaine tells him earnestly, but he doesn’t need telling twice. He turns Kurt quickly, pressing him back against the countertop and going for his belt buckle as he leans in to kiss him. Blaine’s not stupid – he knows exactly what is happening here because Kurt always _always_ uses blowjobs to distract him – but God, Blaine is never ever going to be bothered by that, not when Kurt is hard in his boxer briefs, his long fingers curling in Blaine’s hair as he murmurs Blaine’s name like it’s the only word that matters.

"One day," Kurt says later, after the blowjob, after a dinner that was (unsurprisingly) as delicious as the kisses from the cook, when they’re curled together on the sofa. Blaine has all but forgotten he even wanted a puppy in the first place – Kurt definitely knows what he’s doing, it’s not Blaine’s fault. "One day, when you’re done with college and we both have jobs with proper salaries and we’ve moved into our dream apartment–”

"In the Village?"

"Probably. Oh, maybe even a _brownstone,_ Blaine... Then we’ll get a puppy."

"For real?"

"For real," Kurt promises.

"Okay." He lifts his head for a kiss, reaching to pull Kurt closer and licking into his mouth – Blaine always so hungry for more and Kurt always happy to oblige.

"Okay," Kurt says softly when they pull apart. It feels like a done deal.

"Do you wish you’d gone?"

Blaine doesn’t even know where the question has sprung from, and he wonders instantly whether asking it is a total dick move. Kurt looks at him, puzzled.

"To London, I mean."

"Oh." Kurt pushes an errant curl off Blaine’s forehead and smiles softly. "No."

"Are you sure? Because it would have been an amazing opportunity; you were right about that." And if that’s not rubbing salt in a wound that’s still likely to be open, then Blaine really doesn’t know what is, yet he’s still talking: "Because it would appear I’m worried about it. I’m scared, I think, that you’re going to wind up resenting me."

"Oh, Blaine." Kurt shakes his head. "No. I think... I don’t know. I was a jerk about the whole thing, really, and I never should have let it go that far without talking to you. I never should have let it get past an idle consideration without talking to you, and the truth is everything you said was right. It wasn’t only about what was right for _me_ , it was about what was right for us and me going to London wasn’t. If I’m perfectly honest, once I actually sat down and thought it through, I’m not entirely convinced it would have been right for me either. I was blinded by thoughts of Buckingham Palace when in reality I stand a much better chance of furthering my career by staying put; London would have been an unnecessary string to my bow. Since I stayed Isabelle has had me heading up two _huge_ projects and that’s worth so much more than being the boy balancing coffee cups; I’ve done that already, I’ve been the intern and moved on. I’d have missed all that if I’d gone. I wasn’t looking at the bigger picture, and I think once I’d gotten there and realized that then I would have regretted it. I don’t wish I’d gone and you don’t need to worry: you aren’t the only reason I stayed and I will never wind up resenting you for the fact that I did."

"It doesn’t feel like a missed opportunity?"

"There’ll be other opportunities," Kurt tells him. "But the point is that I know now – _we_ know now – that we have to make the big decisions together: to get a puppy or not, to go to England or not, to try that new Chinese place round the corner instead of our usual takeout or not."

"That place does always smell amazing," Blaine interjects.

"It does, doesn’t it? My point is, it’s about us. Together. A team."

"The best team. And thank you; I’m glad you get it, how it made me feel. "

"I do.” Kurt says earnestly, “and for what it’s worth, I’ll always want to be here with you more than on the other side of the world completely without you."

"That’s good." Blaine smiles. "Because if you left me I’d have to move past classic pop and rock at karaoke, graduate to singing heartbreaking ballads with Santana forever. NYADA would probably kick me out for crimes against music and the blood of my future career would be on your hands."

"A lucky escape then."

"I’d say so," Blaine says as he closes his eyes and leans in for a kiss, his legs tangled with Kurt’s and his fingers pressing into warm smooth skin as he sneaks a hand beneath the hem of Kurt’s shirt. “Yeah.”

 

 


End file.
